Since red meat won’t kill you (it will make you stronger), why is taxing saturated fat still up for discussion? The Danish proposal will add a $1.32 per pound to foods with >2.3% saturated fat; the cost of butter will increase by 30% more and olive oil by 7.1%. I know, right? WTF?
Again, I don’t think taxation is the solution, but for the sake of comparison: Arizona’s proposed “fat fee” would cost an extra $50 annually for childless obese patients; Rhode Island’s $0.01/oz of soda; or France’s 3.5% tax on all sugar-sweetened beverages.
Nutritionally speaking, saturated fat should be off the political chopping block; any intervention designed to reduce its consumption will do more harm than good. In brief, here’s one example of what might happen if it worked, i.e., if dietary saturated fat consumption was reduced:
The effect of replacing dietary saturated fat with polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat on plasma lipids in free-living young adults (Hodson et al., 2001 EJCN)
Subjects were given a high saturated fat diet and then switched to either a high polyunsaturated fat diet (trial I) or high monounsaturated fat diet (trial II). In both cases, as seen in the table below, HDL decreased.
Alternatively, here’s what might happen if dietary saturated fat consumption was increased (in brief):
Separate effects of reduced carbohydrate intake and weight loss on atherogenic dyslipidemia (Krauss et al., 2006 AJCN)
The bottom two groups in the chart above ate similar diets except monounsaturated fats were replaced by saturated fats in the last group.
As seen in the table below, saturated fat significantly increased HDL.
So did weight loss, but I’d choose a steak over a stairmaster any day… (daydream thought bubble: “indeed, ‘adherence’ and ‘compliance’ would be things of the past”)
If you believe HDL is important, taxing saturated fat might be a bad idea. unless you have stock in statins.
