PUFA

[julia]

Do you think it's necessary to eat a low fat diet to achieve pufa depletion?Is it possible to deplete pufa by eating high saturated fat diet,which should over time increase the ratio of sfa:pufa in the tissues?

 

[raypeatclips]

As long as you aren't gaining lots of excess body fat, then saturated fat has beneficial roles in the diet. Peat has mentioned how meals containing all 3 macros are best digested, saturated fat has some antimicrobial/antiseptic actions, etc.

 

[Vinero]

The Saturated fats that Ray recommends like coconut oil, butter, and cocoa butter still have about 2% PUFA. Since the body preferentially oxidizes saturated fatty acids, any excess PUFA that can't be directly used as energy will be stored and accumulate slowly in the tissues overtime. So it's important in the long run not to overeat excess fat, even the Saturated fats Ray recommends. On the other hand like Raypeatclips has mentioned saturated fats do stimulate digestion and appetite and have anti-bacterial effects. So I think eating a little saturated fat with each meal is probably optimal. Just cooking your food in coconut oil, butter, or cocoa butter should give enough saturated fat which you can add to a high-sugar, high protein meal for example.

 

[julia]

Thank you for your replies.I read a study where rats who ate high fat diet from coconut oil became deficient in essential fatty acids faster then those on the fatfree diet(can't find that study right now).Do you think this applies to humans?

 

[julia]

And one more quetion:
It is the ratio of Saturated fat
to PUFA that matters more than just the absolute amount of PUFA?

 

[Reaper242xx]

I think the ratio is less important then the actual net sum of total PUFA. There's several people out here doing the low carb paleo diets and they're eating a higher ratio of saturated fat to polyunsaturated fat, but some of them are still consuming 15, 20, maybe even upwards of 30 grams of PUFA daily. Also remember the goal is to efficiently oxidize glucose for our energy production. We want to minimize fat burning as much as possible. Too much saturated fat in the diet could trigger the randal cycle and we won't be able to burn sugar efficiently. I haven't seen anyone give god accurate data on how much fat or how little fat to eat. I remember Ray stating anywhere between 30% and 50% is okay, but more towards 30% is ideal. So somewhere between 350-600 calories from fat is okay, that's approx. between 40-70 grams daily. Unless you have an extremely active metabolic rate, I wouldn't advise going higher then 100.

 

[julia]

Thank you,
I asked Ray about this and he said what you did that net pufa is more important than the ratio.I was wondering why does coconut oil seem to help to protect against pufa then?

 

[Reaper242xx]

According to Peat coconut oil temporarily blocks the anti-thyroid effects of the PUFA. Coconut oil is highly saturated, low in both PUFA and MUFA. So you could probably get by eating a little bit more of it then other fats. Saturated fat is rarely stored as body fat, you tend to burn it up fairly quickly. So something like coconut oil, in comparison to something like butter, tallow, or olive oil, will probably be much less fattening. The MUFA's, and to a lesser extent the PUFA's, are much higher in butter, tallow, and olive oil and therefore will make you fatter easier.

 

[Aymen]

 

[julia]

Thanks again!
Then is it better to go low fat or to add coconut oil to low fat diet,which will increase the proportion of fat eaten compared to carbs and protein?I have seen a study where rats fed hydrogenated coconut oil depleted pufa faster then rats eating zero fat diet.