Good Fat, Bad Fat

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

Louise Lambert-Lagacé and Michelle Laflamme are experienced dietitians
who have attempted to distil their knowledge and advice about dietary
fat into 145 pages; the result is a text that is so densely packed with
information that it is difficult to absorb and apply.

The authors’ views on butter are unclear. Surprisingly, they advise
against using such nonhydrogenated margarines as Becel, Olivina, and
Nuvel (which are often recommended to cardiac patients), because “they
are fabricated with refined and highly processed oils and because their
long-term health impact is still a question mark.” Another difficulty
with this book is that dietary fat is a factor in many medical
conditions, and there are several aspects of the fats (quality,
quantity, source, etc.) to be considered. Although each chapter presents
a particular facet of the fat question, the authors do little tying
together of the various facets and offer few examples.

The book’s core message is that “foods which contain the
monounsaturates, the alpha-linolenic, and omega–3 fatty acids are ...
sources of good fats, while foods that contain hydrogenated fats or
fried fats are ... sources of bad fats.” By this definition, foods
that feature animal fat (dairy products, beef, lamb, pork) are neither
good

nor bad, but readers are still encouraged to re-duce their intake of
such foods for other health reasons.

This book should be in public and academic library collections. For lay
readers, however, it probably needs to be interpreted by a health
professional.