Can Low-Fat Foods be Bad for You?

Can Low-Fat Foods be Bad for You? - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. I am Ruth Carey. I am a registered dietitian and board certified sports nutritionist and my business is Ruth Carey Nutrition Consulting. Low fat foods are not always a good thing but many times they are. Some examples low fat dairy. The fat that is in dairy is saturated fat and has cholesterol and it is not good for you so, in my practice, I often recommend low fat milk or skim milk. I recommend low fat cheeses, low fat cottage cheese because you are still going to get all the great qualities of milk, the calcium, the protein, the phosphorus but, you are not going to get the saturated fat. An example of when low fat may not be good is low fat muffins. Many times, you go to a coffee shop and they have low fat muffins but those low fat muffins are often just cupcakes. It is still white flour, white sugar, just less fat so, it may not be better nutritionally than the bran muffin that is in the counter that has fat but it has lots of fiber. May have some raisin so, it has the iron and many other nutrients so, sometimes low fat works for health but other times, beware.