Hello my friends,

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans. One thing that stuck with me was the saturated fat situation.

This new committee announced they were "ending the war on saturated fat." Bold statement. 

And yet, when you actually read the guidelines, they kept the same recommendation from previous editions: limit saturated fat to less than 10% of your daily calories.

So… which is it? Is saturated fat fine now, or isn't it?

Today I want to clear it up. Not with a biochemistry lecture, but with a practical framework you can actually use the next time you're standing in your kitchen wondering whether to reach for the butter or the olive oil.

We're going to cover three things: 

Let's go.

You've heard the term a thousand times. But if someone asked you to explain it over dinner, could you?

Saturated fat is a type of fat found mainly in animal products and some tropical oils. It's called "saturated" because of its chemical structure — the carbon chain is fully packed with hydrogen atoms. 

This is what makes it solid at room temperature. Think butter, the white fat on a steak, coconut oil.

Unsaturated fats have gaps in that structure, which is why they stay liquid. Think olive oil, avocado oil.

A simple rule of thumb from nutritionist Simon Hill:

Where it's concentrated: 

The biggest sources of saturated fat in the American diet are:

How much is too much? 

Current dietary guidelines recommend keeping saturated fat to less than 10% of your total daily calories. For someone eating 2,000 calories per day, that's about 22 grams of saturated fat maximum.

That number sounds generous until you see how fast it adds up:

Just a breakfast of three strips of bacon, two eggs cooked in a tablespoon of butter, and a slice of cheese could give you 22 grams — your entire day's limit before lunch.

What it does in your body: 

Saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol — often called the "bad" cholesterol. 

When LDL stays elevated over time, it contributes to atherosclerosis: plaque buildup in your arteries that increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. The mechanism, as Hill explains, is that saturated fats down-regulate LDL receptors on the liver, so less LDL gets cleared from your bloodstream.

This isn't fringe science.

It's supported by randomized controlled trials, long-term observational studies, and Mendelian randomization research. 

The link between saturated fat, elevated LDL, and cardiovascular disease is one of the most well-established findings in nutrition science.

That part is straightforward.

The confusing part is what happened next.

A few years ago, studies started making headlines suggesting that saturated fat wasn't actually linked to heart disease. 

This even made the cover of Time magazine. Suddenly, butter was "back." Coconut oil was a superfood. And a whole generation of health content told people to stop worrying about saturated fat altogether.

So what happened? Did the science change?

No. The studies asked the wrong question.

Gil Carvalho, MD PhD — a nutrition researcher whose work I respect — explains this with a principle he calls "Compared to What?"

Those headline-making studies looked at people eating different amounts of saturated fat. But they didn't ask what people were eating instead. And that turns out to be the whole game.

If someone cuts butter but replaces it with white bread and sugary cereal, their cardiovascular risk doesn't improve. That's not because saturated fat is harmless — it's because the replacement was equally problematic.

When Harvard researchers finally separated out what people ate instead of saturated fat, the picture became clear:

The American Heart Association's 2017 Presidential Advisory reviewed the full body of evidence — RCTs, prospective studies, mechanistic research — and concluded that replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats, reduces cardiovascular disease by roughly 30%.

That's comparable to the benefit of statin therapy. They also confirmed that swapping saturated fat for refined carbs doesn't help at all.

The science didn't flip-flop. The media reported incomplete findings. And that's why the dietary guidelines kept the same 10% recommendation despite the "war is over" language. 

The evidence hasn't changed. The messaging was just confusing.

"Compared to What?" — remember this principle. It applies to almost every nutrition debate you'll encounter.

Now, here's where I see a lot of smart, health-conscious people get stuck.

They hear "reduce saturated fat" and immediately want to calculate percentages, track grams, and optimize their macros. It feels scientific. It feels thorough. It feels like the responsible thing to do.

But as Walter Willett, MD — professor of nutrition at Harvard and lead author of the EAT-Lancet Commission — puts it: think foods, not nutrients.

You don't eat nutrients in isolation. You eat meals. 

If you build your plate around the right foods, the fat quality takes care of itself. No tracking required.

This saves you from the optimization trap that so many high-achievers fall into. You don't need to become a lipid scientist. You need better defaults.

Here are the practical swaps:

I want to be honest about what this looked like for me personally.

The hardest swap was meat — specifically, fatty meat. I grew up in the Philippines eating “pork humba” with all the fat under the skin. That dish is comfort, culture, and family rolled into one. Walking away from it as my default wasn't simple.

And when I first learned about nutrition, I actually tried keto. It lasted exactly one week. I missed rice. If you grew up Asian, you understand — rice is life. 😂

Several of my friends tried it too. Same result.

You can't sustain an approach that fights your actual life.

That experience taught me something I now teach all the time: the best approach is the one you can maintain. And for most people, that means working with your food culture, not against it.

If you've been reading my newsletters for a while, you know I follow a roughly 90/10 approach — about 90% whole food, plant-based, with 10% flexibility for connection, culture, and the occasional treat.

But that's my dial setting in my current season of life.

Your ratio might be 80/20. It might be 70/30. It might shift depending on what's happening in your life right now. That's the whole point of the Dial Method — you adjust the intensity to match your reality without abandoning the principles entirely.

What matters is this: whatever your ratio, the swaps above apply to the majority portion. Your defaults. Your staples. The foods that show up on your plate most days.

The rest? That's between you and your taste buds.

For me, that flexible portion sometimes includes ice cream — and yes, even my non-dairy ice cream is made with coconut cream, so it's not exactly a health food. I don't pretend it is. But it reminds me of late-night outings with my siblings back in the Philippines, and I enjoy every bite without guilt.

That's what sustainable looks like. Not perfection.

Better defaults, with room to live.

If you forget everything else from this newsletter, remember this: eat more plants.

Build your plate around whole plant foods — vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds — and the saturated fat issue largely takes care of itself. You don't need to calculate percentages. You don't need to memorize the swaps table. You just need better defaults.

The science on saturated fat hasn't flip-flopped. The fundamentals still hold.

And now you have the one question that cuts through any future confusion: compared to what?

One thing to try this week: Pick one swap from the table above. Just one. Make it your default for the week and see how it feels.

That's it. That's the practice.

Reply and tell me which swap you're going to try. I read every response.

With gratitude,

Grazelle 🌱

P.S. My baby girl has a new hobby: watching me exercise. Or maybe she just enjoys watching me suffer — hard to tell. Some days she lets me finish my full 30-minute workout. Other days she decides we're done at 15 or 20 minutes. Either way, I got my workout in. Always something over all or nothing.

Whenever you’re ready, here are some other (free) resources you can check out: