115 / 120
,an�ranci,co C!C�roniclt
Fat finds favor on U.S. tables again
By Tara Duggan, San Francisco Chronicle
January
11, 2017
Updated: January
12, 2017
5:33pm
Photo: John Storey
The Avocado Toast at Nourish in San Francisco.
Attitudes about fat are experiencing a sea change in the country, but the transformation
is only very slowly reflected in official government advice. Take avocado toast, one of the
biggest wholesome-food trends of the decade. It took until last month for the Food and
Drug Administration to say that avocados can be labeled "healthy." The fruit previously
didn't qualify - because it had too much fat.
In recent years, many prominent scientists, journalists and diet gurus have been
sounding the alarm that our decades-long obsession with choosing carbs over fat is only
making America more unhealthy, and that the government has overplayed the role of
dietary fat in heart disease and obesity, among other chronic illnesses. Like almost
·
everything in nutrition science, the issues are far from settled, but the new ideas about
fat are taking root in grocery shopping.
"Avoidance of traditional health-related attributes like fat or cholesterol are waning,"
says David Portalatin, vice president and industry analyst of the market research
company NPD Group.
The percentage of adults who checked food labels for total fat decreased from 46 percent
to
31
percent between
2006
and
2015,
Portalatin found. The percentage who checked for