Eskimos, Fat and Health

Several years ago, at the peak of the low fat craze, I read an article about Eskimos.  You see, Eskimos eat (or at least used to eat) a diet high in fat -- lots of seal blubber and fatty fish.  According to the thinking of the time this had to be bad as high fat causes heart disease.  Right?  But, no the Eskimos actually had a very low incidence of heart disease.  How could that be?

One theory was that Eskimos were genetically adapted to high fat and thus had low heart disease rates.  This, however, is not true.  Once Eskimos became "civilized" and ate a standard western diet their incidence of heart disease rocketed up.

So, what is going on here?

Well, now it is known that it is not the amount of fat in your diet that matters, it is the type of fat.  Fat from wild animals such as seals is high in Omega-3 fats.  This is why the high fat Eskimo diet is healthy.  Fat in domestically raised, grain fed animals, however, is low in Omega-3 fat and high in Omega-6 fats.

Food high in Omega-6 fats and refined foods such sugars and grains is inflammatory to the human body.  This is the real explanation of why western societies have high incidences of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic illnesses.

Moral of the story:  Keep the most of your diet in organic vegetables, non-refined foods and wild meats.  I know it is rather hard to find seal blubber but any wild meat such as fish (sardines are great), deer, bison etc. is high in Omega-3 fats.  Avoid processed foods (most cans and packages) as they are high sugar, salt and refined carbohydrates.  Avoid most grocery store beef, pork and chicken as it is from grain fed animals which may also give you unwanted feed additives such as hormones and antibiotics.  Because processed foods are usually high in salt (check the label) you increase your probability of getting a stroke.