Making Sense of Dietary Fat (PART 2)


DON’T BE AFRAID
Saturated Fats
Oh man, how the research is conflicted over this stuff. This is the old-school enemy of health that was recently found to be not such a bad guy after all. It’s like when they do those movies about classic villains from their point of view… it’s like the Magneto of nutrition really. Americans were getting a lot less healthy starting somewhere in the mid-20th century with the advent of mass quantities of processed foods, and the first villain that the government named was this saturated fat. There was a lot of political money behind it and so fast forward sixty plus years and we still think a lot of the same stuff despite a ton of new research.

Steak is an undeniably tasty source of saturated fats.

Some studies still show it can be somewhat harmful to your health. Other studies show absolutely zero correlation with disease or death. Even others show that certain types of saturated fatty acids actually improve your health. Medium chain triglycerides, a category of saturated fatty acids found in high quantities in coconut oil, among other foods, has been shown to increase HDL, the “good” cholesterol, without increasing LDL, the “bad” cholesterol.

Coconut oil is a great source of healthy saturated fats in the form of medium chain triglycerides.

I would give you this advice about saturated fats. Don’t be afraid of them. Eat unprocessed, whole, natural foods that contain saturated fats. You’ll be just fine. Eat unprocessed meats, coconut oil, butter, and even some bacon. Obviously we all need some bacon in our lives when all is said and done.


CUT DOWN HEAVILY ON THESE
Omega 6 (Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid)
I almost called this category “The Bad Stuff” but thought that wasn’t really accurate at all. In fact, like Omega 3, Omega 6 is an essential fatty acid. Essential means that our body needs it to function and cannot produce it without actually consuming it. You need to eat some. So what’s the problem? Well, remember it’s all about the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6. The only way to get the benefits of eating Omega 3 is to allow your body’s receptors to absorb them. If you eat too much Omega 6 (which almost all of us do) then your body can’t absorb the Omega 3.

Don’t buy or cook with this junk.

Omega 6 is found in super high quantities in what people call “vegetable oil.” This is in quotations for a number of reasons. First, it’s not from vegetables. Canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, soy/soybean oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, grapeseed oil… should I go on? None of these are actually vegetables. Even worse, a lot of these are chemically extracted from the plant. Most or all of the oils in this category fall under industrial cooking oils. They’re super cheap, have high smoke points for repeated frying, and are terrible for you.

Not only does the high consumption of Omega 6 crowd out any hope of Omega 3 helping your body, but they have the opposite function. They cause inflammation. In small quantities, this is actually a good thing, hence why it’s essential. We need inflammation for wound healing, immune response, and pain management. But we eat far too much in our diets, which causes systemic inflammation. Artery inflammation, joint inflammation, and organ inflammation can cause a wide range of serious chronic diseases.
Get your Omega 6 from natural sources only, like nuts and seeds. They have enough other nutrients to make it worthwhile. I’m sure that avoiding fried foods has been constant advice, but there’s more to it than just the calories. It’s the rancid or overused Omega 6 oil that’s the real culprit.

THE BAD STUFF
Trans Fats

Fast food french fries used to be cooked in trans fats, and now they are cooked in something not much better — the industrial “vegetable” oils that are high in Omega 6.

You may have seen this one coming. Another fat where most or all of the research pretty much agrees. The research basically shows that these are just bad for you. The vast majority of trans fats are unsaturated fats that have been bombarded with hydrogen atoms in a lab to make them pseudo-saturated for that telltale shortening-like texture. If you ever see the words “partially hydrogenated” in front of something, that’s what this means. They are found in extremely low quantities in nature and should be avoided at all costs in other sources. These have been shown to be a double whammy on cholesterol levels: they increase LDL (“bad”) and decrease HDL (“good”) and can increase risk factors for a large number of serious diseases.

Unsurprisingly, these were created partially because of the outcry against saturated fats back in the day. Since these are still technically unsaturated, they were thought to be a healthier alternative to natural saturated fats. Oops! Again, political money and agendas formed a terrible result for our health. I don’t want to get on a soap box about this, so all in all, just avoid this stuff. Luckily, the truth is finally out about it, so it is found less and less in all products.