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It has been widely suggested that saturated fat consumption has fuelled the current obesity epidemic. Macronutrient choices appear to be important not only as potential factors influencing obesity, but also independently as risk factors for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. The neuropeptide galanin has previously been implicated in the regulation of fat intake, although its precise role has been contested. The present study investigated mice with targeted knockout of the galanin gene (GKO). We demonstrate that, when only a high fat diet (HFD) was available, wild‐type (WT) animals consumed significantly more energy than the GKO mice (89.85 ± 4.57 kJ/day versus 76.84 ± 3.55 kJ/day, P < 0.001, n = 17 versus 15). Consistent with this, WT animals gained more body weight when fed the HFD than GKO animals (3.48 ± 0.44 g versus 2.02 ± 0.62 g, P < 0.001, n = 17 versus 15). In a …