We don't talk a lot about dietary science here on SciShow because, frankly, it can seem like a hype factory designed more to generate clicks than to generate understanding.
People want to hear what to eat and what not to eat in order to be healthy.
The problem with that. . . is that it's complicated.
It's too complicated to fit into a headline.
Eating lots of fat will make you unhealthy, but so will eating lots of anything.
Studies show that cutting fat intake is useless when attempting to help people lose weight if those calories are replaced by something else, which they tend to be.
Now fat is relatively straightforward chemically, but it's boggled dietary scientists and, especially, journalists writing about it for decades.
But the basics of what we understand aren't that complicated, so let's get to the heart of fat. . . . . . . Fats are molecules that organisms use to store energy. . . they are very good at that and so they can be converted into lots and lots of energy for running an organism, whether it's a seed growing into a plant or a neuron firing in your brain.
But, basically, the first thing to know about fat is that it is energy dense.
So per gram, fat has more than twice the energy of protein or carbohydrates.
