Eat fat and grow slim by Richard Mackarness, M.B.,B.S. (1960)

 

Eat fat and grow slim by Richard Mackarness, 1960

In this pre-season of cakes, cookies and tummy ache to come, I am posting my dear ‘Way of eating’, which is based on this little book I got in 2006 but literally saved me from getting basically ‘Old…’.  Dedication is the only way to succeed here and it is a full-time struggle to keep this dedication alive and well into my believes.  Anybody closed to me knows that I am a carnivore, meaning meat eater!  I have been a carnivore for most of my life, here and there and I have never liked veggies.  They give me enormous tummy ache.  Because of the controversy surrounding all this eating way of life, I mostly keep it to myself, and don’t publish it much.  Now, don’t take me wrong, I cook and bake anything because I have a passion for cooking, live for it, write for it and share any secret about foods.  But that doesn’t mean that I eat my work!

 

So here is a little extract of the book : ‘Eat Fat and Grow Slim’ by Richard Mackarness, written in 1960, the year I was borne actually!

 

How has this dislike of the idea of fat taken hold?

In two ways, more recently, as a result of propaganda for high-protein diets, and over many years

  

because of the use of certain words in our language which have given visible fat unpleasant 

associations. For although many people will tell you they cannot eat fat you will find that it is only 

in certain forms and under certain names that they refuse it. 

They will eat butter, bacon and suet puddings quite happily but the words blubber, greasy food and 

cold mutton fat make them queasy. The truth is that a rose by any other name does not smell as 

sweet and we are all extremely sensitive to word-associations, pleasant and unpleasant. 

Today the word “fat” itself has come under nearly as strong a taboo as blubber and tallow in years 

gone by. But notice that it is not fat itself which is disliked but only what people think of as “fat.” 

The man who cuts the fat off his ham will admit to being very fond of steak pudding and the woman 

who “can’t stand that greasy Spanish food ” will cheerfully polish off a couple of chocolate sundaes. 

In fact, the consumption of edible fats has risen steadily over the years both here and in the United 

States, but the rise has been mainly in the consumption of “invisible” fats, contained in bacon, lean 

meat, fish, cheese, milk, eggs, ice-cream, chocolate, cakes, biscuits, nuts and mayonnaise. 

Visible fat consumption has gone up too but more in respect of popularly approved fats-butter, 

cooking fats and oils, margarine-than the unpopular animal fats, lard, ham fat, mutton fat and beef 

fat and dripping. 

So opposition to fat is apparent rather than real and anyone who starts to eat a high-fat diet can do 

so without offending their tastes by choosing-at first anyway-those foods high in “invisible” or 

“approved” fats which they like already. 

After a week or two on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet they will be surprised to find that they will 

develop a taste for fat of all kinds and will relish the fat crackling on pork and the fat layer on a 

joint of roast beef. They will have got back to the ideal diet of their forefathers and will be living on 

the fat of the land. 

Lately, too, the false story that fats predispose to heart disease has tended to put people off the 

visible fats which they think of as “fat” in the obvious sense. 

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Lastly, the third personal objection: the fat person’s craving for starch and sweet things. 

Carbohydrate foods are the cheapest foods and are most readily to hand for snacks. Therefore, if 

people are going to overeat, whether for social or emotional reasons, they will probably tend to 

overeat starch and sugar. 

These are the obvious reasons why fat people tend to eat a lot of sweet things. They like what they 

are accustomed to and these things are forever being pressed on them by well meaning friends and 

relations. There is, however, a more fundamental reason why a fat person should overeat starch and 

sugar. This was hinted at in Chapter Two, where it was explained that a person fattens easily 

because his body is unable to deal with carbohydrate properly. Turn back to the discussion about 

the block that prevents the fat person utilising carbohydrates and stored fat for energy. 

It would appear that owing to this block the fat man on a high carbohydrate diet is nearly starving in 

the midst of plenty. Most of the carbohydrate he absorbs is turned into fat and accumulates in his fat 

stores and he cannot easily get it out again. The rest of the tissues of his body suffer a relative 

deprivation of nutriment and naturally he feels hungry and eats more. Habit, reinforced by the 

cheapness and ready availability of starchy and sugary foods, ensures that he attempts to satisfy his 

hunger with yet more carbohydrate which in turn forms more fat and still leaves him hungry. The 

vicious circle goes on and he gets fatter. 

This is so particularly when he is gaining weight or trying to get it off on a low-calorie diet 

containing carbohydrate. The reason for this will be explained in a minute, after the fat cycle: 

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