Ah, here's my citation:

From "In Defense of Food" by Michael pollan, pages 153 and 154:

"In the case of low-fat or skim milk, that usually means adding powdered milk. But powdered milk contains oxidized cholesterol, which scientists believe is much worse for your arteries than ordinary cholesterol, so food makers sometimes compensate by adding antioxidants, furter complicating what had been a simple one-ingredient whole food. Also, removing the fat makes it much harder for your body to absorb the fat soluble vitamins that are the reasons to drink milk in the first place."

It seems like a pretty good argument to me.

What are "normal levels of fat" and what is a "traditional low fat western diet"?

Western diets are not low fat at all -- they are high fat (and heavy in the worst fats -- trans- and saturated) as well as high carb (and heavy in the worst carbs -- sugar and refined grain and deep fried potatoes) and low in vegetables. Fat may not be the only problem in the burger, but it is definitely part of the problem, given the amount of calories contained in the burgers.

Now, if you are a hunter / gatherer who often had to go days without finding food, gorging on that many calories in a meal would help tide you over the starvation days. But the (lesser amount of) fat in the wild animal you just killed would likely be a lot less saturated, and have more omega-3 polyunsaturates, than the typical burger from domesticated cattle.

The traditional low fat western diet is eaten by a person who believes that low fat diets are healthy regardless of what else they eat. It is possible to buy food products called "low fat" and still eat an incredibly unhealthy diet. I believe rates of heart disease actually went up when the low fat fad first came about. People started eating less fat, but more processed carbs which led to more heart disease.

Now a balanced diet free of refined foods but with moderate levels of fat, 30 to 40 percent of daily caloric intake, is actually much better at combating heart disease.

Can you please show me these studies. Hyperlipidemia, cholesterol and saturated fats are absolutely significant modifiable risk factors for a number of diseases like adenocarcinoma of the osophagus (which i did a research on) and atheriosclerosis.

You know it could be the other way around that people who eat high fat diets have higher cholesterol and heart disease - cardiovascular disease would be more accurate.

Fat is not that bad. No it isnt, however saturated fat and cholesterol is, they risk factors for a number of disease. Its also clear that excess fat is related to a number of cancers.

By "low fat diet", do you mean the orthodox version, with 30% of calories from fat (food pyramid and such), or the radical version, with 10% of calories from fat (Ornish, Pritikin, etc.)?

Hardly anyone does the radical version, so we'll assume you do not mean that. The orthodox version that people seemingly try to follow (not always successfully) is not particularly low fat by your standards (30% is the lower end, but still within the range, of what you favor for fat intake). On the other hand, people seem to be taking in more total calories from whatever source, even though the percentage of calories from fat may be marginally lower than before, and exercising less, with predictable results regarding obesity and heart disease.

As far as the quality of foods eaten, you probably won't get any disagreement. But selectivity should be applied to all categories of foods, not just carb foods. A fast food burger from factory farmed domesticated beef heavy in saturated and trans-fats and calories hardly becomes a healthy meal just because you did not eat the bun.

Thats funny.

And by the way, you said the word "bad" and "isnt that bad" at least 5 times in one post.

I think its rather meaningless and easily misinterpreted. Maybe because youve been hooked into nutrional books by various authors your rational has be skewed somewhat, trying digging into pathology and the processes of disease and maybe you might understand the whole grand sheme of things a little clearer..

fast food burgers were just about part of my daily diet before i started getting more healthy
but even now im still not afraid to eat one every other blue moon where ill go all out with something big and fancy like a chili bacon double cheese burger

Wait, where are we finding this patty? The ground sirloin I use has 14g sat fat in an uncooked lb. The highest ground beef I found has 21.9g sat. fat in a pound. Is this patty a 1lb patty?

It is 1/3 lb and specifically the brand "Bubba Burger"

AAAAAHHHHH. The burger in a box. So it is not "real" meat. If you know what I mean.

right...who knows what's in it.

I get extra lean ground beef and it's as low if sat fat as chicken breast

Sorry I haven't been too active lately but I've been a little busy in the past week working my 12 hour shift job, going to college and taking care of my 5 children all while volunteering at a soup kitchen. I almost had time last night to post but at the last minute I had to make the world rotate in the other direction so that I could go back in time and retake an IQ test so that I may receive an ever higher score.

Anywho, did I miss something Spicy? Weren't you the one a few threads ago claiming that carbs aren't bad even in their refined form?

I've talked to a lot of people about saturated fats because I am eating a ton of them in my keto diet.

They say:

"when carbs are continually combined with saturated fats , as in the average american eating lifestyle , the body cannot defend itself against all the unnatural occurances that happen as a result of this combo ; thus these metabolic diseases were born. keto is the way nature intended us to eat. meat. veggies. nuts. occassional fruit and honey."

Basically they say that saturated fats are fine if you don't eat processed, starchy, refined carbs with them. I hope there is truth to this... since i'm eating a lot of saturated fats.

That's one of the things that bothers me about the keto diet