Warning: This story may be hazardous to the health of readers with high cholesterol or coronary artery disease. Read at your own risk!

Lardy, Lardy!

Fat's where it's at in Jennifer McLagan's weighty new cookbook with the lean one-word title: Fat.

Fat and all its oleaginous relatives -- grease, drippings, butter, lard, heavy cream, hot bubbling tallow, suet, marrow, poultry skin, foie gras, caul fat, mayonnaise, pork belly, bacon slabs, duck crackling and, of course, fettauge, those little blobs of fat that float on top of the soup.

Mmm mmm good.

And good for you, maintains McLagan.

The Toronto chef, food stylist and author is not only unapologetic about her fondness for fat but possibly its greatest champion.

The opening line of her book -- subtitled An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient and dedicated to "all the Jack Sprats out there -- you're wrong!" -- sums up the gist of the next 231 pages:

"I love fat."

If Fat's recipes included nutritional analyses, it would have to be moved from the cookbook shelf to the horror section of every bookstore.

Part primer on fat, part cookbook celebrating fat in all its greasy glory, Fat posits that society's fat phobia is "overwrought". It has driven us "into the arms of trans fats and refined carbohydrates" which have made us just as fat, just as unhealthy and not nearly as happy.

"Fat is just as indispensable to our health as it is to our cooking," McLagan says in her introduction to Fat. It supports the immune system, fights disease, protects the liver, regulates the digestive system improves brain function and promotes good skin and healthy hair.

Furthermore, she says, diets that are low in fat leave people hungry, depressed and prone to weight gain and illness.

Well, whaddya know?

All that low-fat yogurt, the skim milk, the extra-lean ham ... maybe we should have been eating red cabbage with goose fat, french fries in lard, bone marrow tacos, suet lattes, bacon fat spice cookies and duck fat and grapefruit salad dressing.

Uh-uh. No way. Not on your clogged arteries' life, says Lesia Hucal, public health dietitian with the City of Hamilton.

"I have no idea what this lady is all about and I've never laid eyes on this book," said a horrified Hucal when asked her thoughts on Fat.

"The absence of fat makes you depressed? I don't know," she said skeptically. "Those (statements) are not substantiated anywhere."

It's common knowledge that fat is imperative to a well-balanced diet, Hucal said. Complete abstinence from fat is not recommended by Health Canada, Canada's Food Guide or any healthy eating regimen.

Then again, neither is a steady diet of McLagan's Kugelhopf au Lard, Bacon Baklava, Bone Marrow Crostini and their ilk.

Health professionals are not to blame for fat's bad rap. Hucal pins that on media and the food and diet industries who have cashed in on society's paranoia about fat.

"The body has a huge need for fat. It plays an important role in how our neurotransmitters work," Hucal says.

"Good nutrition professionals have never said 'You need to get rid of this fat or that fat.'

"But we still have to be careful about the type of fat and how much of it we are getting.

"Yes, we agree that you need oil and fat in your diet every day, but we don't support a lot of saturated fat every day," said Hucal.

"Enjoy your duck crackling once a year."

McLagan blames soaring obesity rates on reduced fat consumption and increased intake of sugar and carbohydrates, a shift she tracks to about 30 years ago.

But Hucal doesn't buy it -- that's also about the same time that new technologies and changing lifestyles began to emerge, making society more sedentary and more obese.

McLagan concedes that "some people with serious health conditions can benefit from reducing the amount of fat they eat," but by and large (heavy on the large), "fat is indispensable and delicious."

And you can take that to the cardiologist.

mnolan@thespec.com

905-526-4689