Healthy Food Chart

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), both agencies of the United Nations, just released a big fat report, all about fat.

These two agencies are charged with "providing science-based guidance on food and nutrition to national governments and the international community."  Periodically, they conduct sweeping reviews of the available evidence on various dietary questions and attempt to formulate some sort of guidelines based on the current state of the science.  Their most recent effort focuses on dietary fats–how much and which kinds make us healthy or sick.

In the introduction, the authors note:

"Knowledge of the role of particular fatty acids in determining health and nutritional well-being and how they exert these effects has expanded dramatically…The benefits and potential risks of these nutrients go well beyond their role as fuels: specific n–3 and n–6 fatty acids are essential nutrients, while others affect the prevalence and severity of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and age-related functional decline. This…demonstrates the need to focus on the role of individual fatty acids and how requirements vary with age and physiological status."

The entire report, which was published in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, is available for free online.

Based on a quick skim,  it looks as if the recommendations for total fat intake (20 to 35% of calories) and saturated fat (no more than 10% of calories) aren't changing much but there are more nuanced recommendations regarding individual fatty acids, especially omega-3, omega-6, and monounsaturated fats.

If nothing else, it's helpful to have all the recent research on the subject–flawed as it may be–gathered and summarized in one place.  I'll be reading through it in the days ahead (or maybe weeks–there's 300 pages of material) and posting on anything that catches my eye, but I thought some of you might be interested in taking a look as well.