According to the advisory, coconut oil is 82 percent saturated fat, and studies show it raises LDL “bad” cholesterol as much as butter, beef fat or palm oil. Canola oil, on the other hand, has only 7 percent saturated fat. All fats and oils have varying levels of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat.
One reason people may have a hard time reducing their saturated fat intake is the familiarity of foods made with it, Sacks said.
“People also have a strong emotional connection to what they eat,” Sacks said. “What you’re brought up eating, what people call their comfort food — there’s a lot of emotion in that.” But nutrition science may not support the health of that kind of eating, he said.
Overall fat intake was higher when early studies of saturated fats were done in the 1950s and 1960s, according to the advisory. The studies showed that reducing saturated fats lowered cholesterol, reduced the risk of heart attack and stroke, and in some cases lowered the risk of death from coronary heart disease.
Although people are eating less saturated fats today than in the 1950s, they still eat too much, Sacks said. Most restaurants today cook with unsaturated fats, but foods like beef and bacon still contain saturated fat.
“If you have a cheeseburger or bacon burger, you get sat[urated] fat from almost everything except the bread,” Sacks said. Despite its lower fat status, a white bread bun isn’t particularly healthy either, Sacks said.
He advises people to reduce saturated fats by not cooking with butter, but with canola, or corn oil or soybean oil, or extra virgin olive oil.
Johnson said the main sources of saturated fats are butter, lard, beef tallow, palm oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil. Healthier oils include canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, and walnuts, she said. Olive oil, avocados and tree nuts such as almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pistachios, and pecans are low in saturated fats, and largely composed of monounsaturated fats, Johnson said.
Surprisingly, Sacks isn’t against frying foods, even deep frying.
“There’s nothing wrong with deep frying as long as you deep fry in a nice unsaturated vegetable oil,” he said.