Healthy Fat

Understanding the many complexities behind the biochemistry of fats and how they are used in the body can be an overwhelming task to say the least.  Luckily, you do not have to be a biochemist, study nutrition for years, or read stacks of dietary books in order to benefit from healthy fats.  All you need to do is eat them. 

The imbalance of healthy to unhealthy fats is a major contributor to the health disaster which is the “Standard American Diet”.  That and the abundance of sugars and over processed carbohydrates fuels the fire.  If you want to make it complicated you can, but it doesn’t need to be. 

There are many “lifestyle diets” circulating our inboxes and social media today.  Some are new, and others are recycled versions of some that have been around for decades.  Diets such as Paleo, Vegan, Keto, Atkins, or Raw, may seem to be significantly different, and indeed they have some big differences, but at their core, their message is the same.  The basic philosophy that if you are mindful of what you put in your mouth, if you “eat healthier foods, you will be healthier”.  That if you eliminate the sugars, the simple carbohydrates and eat quality foods, you will improve your health is similar across the board.  Whether you do this through a Vegan or a Paleo lifestyle modification is up to you and your personal beliefs regarding your body and its relationship to the earth.  If done right, many of these diets can bring you closer to optimal health. 

Here is even better news: you don’t have to study any of these lifestyle modifications in order to benefit from their wisdom.  When people ask me what diet I follow, I kindly respond, “my diet”.  Over the past couple years, I’ve found that my body can tell me what is right for me.  Yes, I’ve studied and experimented with all the aforementioned diet plans.  I’ve learned what works for me and my family and what doesn’t. 

So, as you dive into the following information regarding oils, just remember this, the following lists of “Good” and “Bad” fats are not RULES, they are information.  What you do with it is completely up to you.  Better healthy, more energy, less pain, whatever it is, you have the power and the ability to make it happen, if you choose to do so.  All that is needed is a bit of determination and a new shopping list.

The absolute best change you could ever make in your diet is to stop eating unhealthy fats and increase your intake of healthy fats.  Now you may be asking, “who decides which fats are healthy and which are not?”  There are two ways to answer that question, one is complicated, and one is not.

The complicated way:

“Science has decided which foods we should eat”.  Then, we must review the “science” and, of course, who has done the science, then try to decide who we believe.  This way gave me a headache for years.   I would advise against it.

The simple way:

Listen to your body.  Is your body happy right now, I mean TRULY happy? When we listen to our body and eat the foods it wants us to eat, we feel healthy, we feel like we were meant to feel… alive.

After 18 years of dietary research and experimentation, here is the one thing I believe almost everyone can agree on; if you stop eating foods that come out of a chemical factory, you will feel better.  If you start eating more foods that naturally come from the earth, you will feel healthier.  Simple 

Let’s review which fats come out of a chemical factory.  The best examples are bean and seed oils.  The fact that beans and seeds grow in nature is not good enough.  If you want to eat them, that is ok.  But let me ask you this.  Can you buy soybeans and squeeze the oil out of them?  No, you can’t.  It requires a chemical factory to extract the oils.  Nature has a way of giving us what we need in the correct balance.  When we mess with that balance, unpleasant things happen. 

Since the 1960’s we have been told by certain groups that the oils and fats nature give us are bad.  Thank goodness we now have the technology to MAKE the “healthy” oils that our bodies need. Sorry, but I’m just not buying it.  I’ll stick with Mother Nature, thank you. 

If you need science to tell you what is best, I suggest you research the healthiest countries in the world and look at what they eat.  Do their foods come from a chemical factory, or the earth?  You get the idea, I’m sure.

Unhealthy Fats

The following fats (oils) are either high in pro-inflammatory Omega-6 fatty acids, over processed, or genetically modified.  When you remove these unhealthy fats from your diet your body thanks you.

• Safflower oil

• Grapeseed oil

• Sunflower oil

• Corn oil

• Cottonseed oil

• Soybean oil

• Peanut oil

• Canola oil

You may be thinking, “that is not a very long list”, and this is true.  However, when you start to consider the pervasiveness of these fats in the American Diet, you begin to understand the problem.  By some estimates, soybean oil alone may contribute 10-20% of the total fat calories in the Standard American Diet. 

Start looking at your food labels.  What is in your cans, jars and boxes?  What oils are in your salad dressings, baked goods, sauces, and restaurant foods?  These oils are cheap, and that is why they are used everywhere and in most everything.  Now, this does not mean you can’t eat out, or that you must cook everything from scratch.  Healthier options are available everywhere, you only need to look, and you will find them.

Healthy fats, compliments of… the Earth

Which naturally occurring fats did the above-mentioned unhealthy oils replace?  Mainly butter, coconut oil, palm oil and animal fats.  These are the fats we used before chemical companies decided to bring us the modern industrial diet.  Real foods that are made with thought and care, even foods found in a box, can, or dare I say… a bakery, will use one of the following cooking fats.

• Olive oil

• Avocado oil

• Butter

• Ghee (clarified butter)

• Coconut oil

• Red Palm oil

• Pork Lard

• Beef tallow

• Other animal fats

Some nut and seed oils can be extracted with minimal processing.  While they can add variety to a healthy diet, most nut and seed oils are used in moderation and are not plentiful enough to be your primary fats.    

Seed oils such as: flax seed, sesame seed and perilla oil

Nut oils such as: almond, macadamia, walnut

Healthy fats in healthy foods:

Let’s not forget that there are many foods that naturally contain healthy fats.  The human body and metabolic process was designed to run on fats as its primary fuel source.  Carbohydrates are used for short term energy, and fats are used for long term energy.  If you want energy all day, every day, then you need to make sure your body remembers how to use fats for energy.  This is only possible when you consume meals that consist of fats, fiber and proteins with little or no carbohydrates. 

Here are my favorite healthy fat foods:

• Eggs

• Avocados

• Nuts

• Olives

• Fish and Seafood

• Raw, aged cheese

• Grass fed meat (bison, wild game, lamb, pork, beef)

• Pasture-Raised Poultry

Eating healthy fats and removing industrial oils from your diet should not be difficult or stressful.  Yes, any change we make in our routine is met with a hint of resistance, but when the benefits are this profound and so immediate, it is soon forgotten.  There are no rules, only choices.  Your current outcomes are a direct reflection of the choices you have recently made. 

A routine, or lifestyle, is nothing more than the same choice being made day-after-day, month-after-month, and, year-after-year.  Choose to try something new, something healthier and feel the change you can create in just a couple days.

The fats you chose to eat are a direct reflection of your health and energy.  Very few choices can make such an amazing difference in our life as the foods we give to our body.  Listen closely, is your body thanking you… or warning you?