Healthy Fats and Oils.......IMO!

[freemotion]

No, but it does indicate something very interesting about the protective effects of taking in fats in a form that the body recognizes and can utilize easily and is a building block of cells and hormones. Now, I'm talking about fat from well-raised animals, and not all chemicalized with pharmaceutical hormones and antibiotics and such.

Just think about the readily available nutrient profile of eggs from truly free-ranging hens compared to eggs from battery hens whose only peek at daylight comes in the brief moment when they are pulled from the crates and handed off, upside down, to someone who then brings them in and stuffs them into a cage where their next brief moment in the sun comes a year later, when the process is reversed on their way to becoming canned catfood. It is like they are completely different foods. I haven't seen data on fats, but I can imagine it must be similar in many ways. The data on the nutrient profile of grass-fed beef and chicken is very different from CAFO-raised beef and chicken. This has to have a huge impact on the quality of the fat, too.

Javamama, I haven't heard of Brian Peskin, but will do a google search tomorrow. What are the oils he is recommending? Do you have specifics?

 

[Wifezilla]

I am really interested in what you attribute to causing heart disease if not smoking and high fats/sentry lifestyle

Excess carbohydrate consumption is the main cause. High fructose corn syrup isn't helping any either. Add high omega 6 vegetable oils to the mix and you have a heart attack cocktail!

 

[Lovechooks]

I am really interested in what you attribute to causing heart disease if not smoking and high fats/sentry lifestyle

Excess carbohydrate consumption is the main cause. High fructose corn syrup isn't helping any either. Add high omega 6 vegetable oils to the mix and you have a heart attack cocktail!

I have never seen any studies stating anything like this :/.

Smoking is the main cause.

 

[reinbeau]

Sorry, but I will continue to believe that smoking is a major cause of heart disease, and I see no reason to say anything different in a discussion about healthy fat and oils. People continue to justify a nasty addiction that really shouldn't be looked upon as a mere habit, it makes me think that they're smokers trying to belittle the damage they're doing to themselves.

I've kept quiet about my thoughts regarding the constant claims that all carbohydrates are sugars and kill you. This is the exact dietary extremism Michael Pollan warns us about in his two books, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. "Eat food, not a lot, mostly plants" - it's a good way to live. Yes, natural fats and oils rendered properly are good for you, as is properly raised meat and fish. You should be going for balance in your diet, of whole foods.

 

[Lovechooks]

Sorry, but I will continue to believe that smoking is a major cause of heart disease, and I see no reason to say anything different in a discussion about healthy fat and oils. People continue to justify a nasty addiction that really shouldn't be looked upon as a mere habit, it makes me think that they're smokers trying to belittle the damage they're doing to themselves.

I've kept quiet about my thoughts regarding the constant claims that all carbohydrates are sugars and kill you. This is the exact dietary extremism Michael Pollan warns us about in his two books, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. "Eat food, not a lot, mostly plants" - it's a good way to live. Yes, natural fats and oils rendered properly are good for you, as is properly raised meat and fish. You should be going for balance in your diet, of whole foods.

I really agree with the above paragraph, especially balance in the diet, a little bit of many things and lots of vegies and fruits a healthy balance of meat and carbs is a fantastic and healthy way to eat.

A good balance of exercise and of course no smoking or doing things that will harm your organs is a great way to live.

 

[freemotion]

Yup.

Smoking is a filthy habit. Nothing more disgusting than seeing anyone in the health care field with a cigarette or worse, a mother or father smoking with kids in the room (or allowing anyone else to smoke in their children's presence), or even worse.....a pregnant woman smoking.

Heart disease can be caused by many factors, but it boils down to the fact that in most cases, it is considered to be a lifestyle disease, as is diabetes.

Balance and variety are the key, avoiding processed foods, which includes any veg oils that are hydrogenated or bleached, deodorized and chemically extracted.

Carbs are not evil......but refined anything is very bad for you. White flour, white sugar, etc.

And you WILL gain weight if you eat whole plant foods in an unbalanced way.....excess of the high glycemic plant foods such as grains, potatoes, etc. Excess. Everyone is individual in what is balanced for their genetic make-up.

VERY interesting article recently in the Mother Earth News e-mail newsletter on the carbohydrate and nutrient content of modern plant foods. Nutrients have declined and carbohydrates have risen....dramatically. This is due to modern farming practices, discussed in another thread. So although this is not about taking in healthy fats and oils.....modern salad can make you fat! Yikes!

 

[Wifezilla]

A "balanced diet" nearly killed me. I was a vegetarian for years. Of course, this is the time in my life when I had the most weight gain. The list of my relatives who diet of heart disease while under the intense care of medical professionals is pretty scary. They all had diet plans and were always willing to give me the "wisdom" of their doctors. Cut fat, drink skim milk, eat lots of fruit, eat lean meat, etc... All this advice did was make them sicker and me fatter.

"The high carbohydrate / low fat diet of the past fifty years has left us with a massive ongoing epidemic of obesity and type-2 diabetes yet those agencies responsible for this incredible nutritional "faux pas" are still denying their role.

Instead of admitting they have made a gross error in judgment these past many decades, they have taken the position of sniping at every attempt being made by responsible leaders to get this country's diet back on track and have become the principle perpetrators of the myth that carbohydrate restriction is harmful.

On the one hand, doctors were taught in biochemistry that consumption of fat and protein placed minimal demands on the pancreas for insulin production yet at the same time and in the very same educational institutions they were instructed to use the standard diabetic diet with its emphasis on ample carbohydrates in the form of bread, potatoes, pasta and rice.

All of these refined carbohydrates placed heavy demands on insulin secretion. Even today, some fifty years later, I can vividly recall my surprise at these conflicting lectures but as a fledgling doctor could not even conceive the thought of challenging traditional medical concepts. Now there is a growing trend among diabetes specialists to restrict carbohydrates in their patients' diet because it works. Not only does it work but it works far better than fifty years of traditional diabetes treatment.

When I read of the accomplishments of such medical scientists as Bernstein, himself a juvenile diabetic, who as a young non-professional had to take his diabetes treatment into his own hands to save his life, I am filled with shame at how inadequate treatment standards have been.

Bernstein later went to medical school in mid-life; primarily so that having an MD his studies could be published in medical journals and he could better inform other doctors. This is a sad commentary of the reality of challenging orthodoxy.

As you review these diets you will observe how very basic they are, even primitive, for to eat in this manner is to regress, nutritionally speaking, 10,000 years to the time before our encounter with agriculture and the preponderance of carbohydrate in our diet.

We humans think of ourselves as highly evolved - the epitome of the evolutionary process yet our metabolic system is unchanged from our primitive ancestors. A carbohydrate restrictive diet is natural for us, the one to which we are best adapted physiologically.

The present Food Pyramid is outdated and Joel Kauffman has done an excellent review of the reasons why. No more than 40-50% of our daily caloric intake should be from carbohydrates and it should be from the complex variety and for fats we must return to the natural fats that were the foundation of the American diet five decades ago.

We also should remember that our strongest antagonists in what I chose to call "back to basics" diet will be the food industry for there is relatively little profit in basic foods. I fondly remember the words of Doctor Paul Dudley White, cardiologist to the presidents back in the mid-fifties. When pressed to support the politically motivated "prudent" diet of fat and cholesterol restriction replied, "See here, I began my practice as a cardiologist in 1921 and never saw a myocardial infarction patient until 1928. Back in the MI-free days before 1920, the fats were butter, whole milk and lard, and I think we would all benefit from the kind of diet that we had when no one had ever heard of corn oil."

Today most people have forgotten all about Dr. Dudley White and his prophetic words of advice. If Dudley White had been in control of our dietary destiny then, cardiovascular disease would probably not be the immense problem it is today.

Duane Graveline MD MPH
Former USAF Flight Surgeon
Former NASA Astronaut
Retired Family Doctor
http://www.spacedoc.net/heart_disease_carbohydrate.htm"



One of my favorite source books is "Good Calories Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. He is a science writer who decided to research dietary recommendations because "...I'd been reporting on salt and blood pressure, which is a huge controversy, and some of the people involved in that were involved in the advice to tell Americans to eat low-fat diets, and they were terrible scientists. These were some of the worst scientists I'd ever come across in my 20-odd year career of writing about controversial science.

You cannot say that because fat consumption associates with heart disease, that that means it causes heart disease, because a lot of other things, for instance, associate with fat consumption.

I literally called up my editor and said, "I just got off the phone with so-and-so, and he's [taken] credit for getting Americans to eat less eggs and less fat. This guy's one of the worst scientists I've ever talked to, and if he was involved in this, then there's a story there." And that was it. I didn't know what the story was. I just knew there was a story."

Here are the conclusions he reached in his book after 5 years of research (yes, the book notes all sources)

"1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease or any other chronic disease of civilization.

2. The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis - the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on your health, weight and well-being.

3. Sugars - sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically - are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.

4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.

5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior.

6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.

7. Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance - a disequilibrium - in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of fat tissue reverses this balance.

8. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated - either chronically or after a meal - we accumulate fat in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel.

9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fast and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.

10. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity. "

If you don't want to read his book (it is large and written for graduate students) here are a few of his articles...
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/taubes.html
http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/2008-10-01/Dietary-Fat-Health-Weight.aspx

 

[freemotion]

In my grandfather's day, skim milk was fed to the family pigs to fatten them up. Along with oats, fermented for a few days so they wouldn't have to be ground up. I watched my grandfather down his daily breakfast of eggs and fried salted pork fat. He was thin and fit into old age. Grandma kept a large garden, too. Grandpa's cash crops were oats, potatoes, and maybe buckwheat, not sure of that last one. They kept pigs, cows, and chickens for the families' consumption. Not a scrap was wasted. Lard and tallow, and crocks of butter.

 

[Wifezilla]

I subscribe to the spacedoc.net newsletter and here is today's offering.
"The Myth of the Low-Fat, High-Carb Diet"
http://www.spacedoc.net/joel_kauffman_low_fat_diet_myth_1

 

[sylvie]

I subscribe to the spacedoc.net newsletter and here is today's offering.
"The Myth of the Low-Fat, High-Carb Diet"
http://www.spacedoc.net/joel_kauffman_low_fat_diet_myth_1

Wifezilla-
I am very interested in viewing your typical day's menu. If you've posted this elsewhere on here could you direct me to the thread?