Americans Have a Lot to Learn About Fat and Fiber
Date: July 14, 1997
Editor: D'Lyn Ford (505) 646-6528, dlford@nmsu.edu
LAS CRUCES -- Many Americans eat margarine instead of butter because they believe it's less fattening. But gram for gram, both fat sources have the same number of calories.
A recent research project revealed that people still have a lot to learn about fat and fiber, said Ann Bock, nutrition scientist with New Mexico State University's Agricultural Experiment Station. The collaborative study by several universities surveyed more than 3,000 mail surveys of adults in Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin and Wyoming.
"We wanted to find out what people know about the health risks related to fat and fiber, and what they were actually doing to reduce fat and get more fiber in their diets," Bock said. "People knew they should lower saturated fat in their diets, but they didn't have any in-depth knowledge about how to do it."
While people from ethnic groups and with less education had a harder time with questions, those with more education also didn't score well on perceiving risks, Bock explained. People knew that fat relates to heart disease, but they didn't know that high-fiber diets can help lower the risks of developing certain kinds of cancer.
"This was a concern," she said. "From a knowledge standpoint, we concluded there's a need to start teaching information that people can apply."
People also need to get passed myths like butter being different from margarine, Bock said.
"Margarine starts as an oil and is turned into a solid," she said. "When an oil is made into a solid, the chemical process causes the development of trans-fatty acids. We're beginning to realize that trans-fatty acids may not be desirable in the diet, and you don't have trans-fatty acids with butter."
Margarine is not considered bad, but researchers are worried about trans-fatty acids, which have been linked to heart disease and certain kinds of cancer, Bock said.
"As educators, we also need to work on the issue of what is fiber, what kinds of foods it comes from and what it will do for you," she said. "There are certain types of fiber that help reduce the risks of heart disease, but other types are related to preventing certain cancers."
Educational materials on fat and fiber should be written at a low-literacy level so they're more understandable, Bock said. "People are confused," she said. "They don't know how to get more fiber and less fat in their diets. We need to help them apply what we're teaching."
One way would be to develop more educational materials that take into account culturally relevant diets, she said.
NMSU's Cooperative Extension Service has many projects that teach people about nutrition, Bock said. In one project, elderly Native Americans learned how to make red enchiladas without lard by softening tortillas in enchilada sauce and making refried beans with broth and spices. Participants had a good product without the added fat, she explained.
"This type of food preparation reduces risks related to obesity, and development of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer," she said.
This Western regional research project was sponsored by Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES).