Fat

It may seem that with a no-sugar, no-gluten diet that I adhere to the "all or nothing" mentality when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. This couldn't be further from the truth. My addiction problems and emotional attachment to food are the reasons that at this moment in time I have had to follow strict guidelines when it comes to my own choices. So when people ask me about what changes they can make to their diet I think they are surprised when I tell them to start small.

Just to be clear, I have wanted to live a healthier lifestyle for years, probably close to a decade. When I first moved into a house with the Hubs I had all these visions of cooking our meals and always making healthy choices. I knew in my long-term health would be better if I ate well but I didn't always make choices consistent with the vision. In fact, I'd say I pigged out on just as much greasy food and take-out as most people. I love desserts and often had treats, and at the holidays I joined the ranks of my fellow Americans and put on extra pounds as I gorged on chocolates, cookies and pies every day from Halloween through New Years.

And even when I saw Michael Pollan on the Oprah show in 2009 and was pregnant with my son I did not drop all the junk cold turkey and start blending up green drinks and snacking on carrots. It was a slow, slow journey over the past four years that have brought me to this point. Filled with highs and tons of bottom-of-the-ice-cream-container lows. I truly believe we fail because we set out goals that are impossible and also dive into excretions of self-improvement without knowing all the facts, or even knowing ourselves all too well. My goal this month is to share some beginning steps that I took and think are extremely beneficial to starting on the healthy track.

I'm going to start with fats.

Fats are perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of our diet. And with good reason. The information out there about fats is very conflicting and there are also so many different types of fats and fats are hidden in items and the focal point of zillions of studies.

I'm actually going to be referring a lot to a woman named Nina Planck in this series on fats. She wasn't one of my "they" in my previous post, but she's a product of the Weston Price/Sally Fallon philosophy. She has a wonderful book called Real Food: What To Eat And Why and also is an excellent source for any woman looking to have a baby. I referred to her book a lot while I was thinking about baby #2 and ate a lot of her foods while the Little Peanut was brewing inside my tummy. 

Fats are extremely important. Without boring you too much with a lot of information, just go back to your old high school biology classes and recall that all of our cell walls are made of fat. And a large chunk of our brains are composed of fat. So if you're looking to make a change in your diet and want to pinpoint where you should really work to use quality ingredients, fats are an excellent place to start. Who wants their cells walls and brain made up of low-quality, inferior fats? Not me!

Here's a super quick lesson on the different fats. First off, all fats are made of hydrogen and carbon. The fatty acids can be saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. All fats technically have all of these components, but they are classified by the predominant fatty acid. 

Saturated: beef, chocolate and butter

Monounsaturated: olive oil

Polyunsaturated: corn oil

Another thing to know about fats is how they withstand to heat (this will come in handy later). Basically, the more saturated a fat, the more sturdy it is and the less likely it will be damaged by exposure to heat. Unsaturated fats spoil more easily when exposed to heat and become rancid. Rancid isn't good.

A trans fat (a term that I think most people are familiar with since the FDA required that boxes label trans fats on boxes back in 2006) is the byproduct of a process called hydrogenation. My first tip for anyone trying to live a healthier life is AVOID ALL HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OILS.

A hydrogenated vegetable oil is what you get when you blast an unsaturated fatty acid with hydrogen in order to make it more saturated and stable. You essentially change a liquid fat into a solid one. This process destroys anything beneficial the unsaturated fat had and also forms what we call a trans fatty acid. Tons and tons of research (dating back to the 1950s) link trans-fatty acids to an increase of heart disease. Why did it take nearly 60 years for the government to mandate they be listed on our food? Well that's a by-product of food politics and big business and I'll hopefully explore that on this blog in the months to come. But for now, please know that trans fats are no bueno. Seriously, bad, bad, bad, bad! Here's a list of all the terrible things trans fats do to us from Nina Planck's book:

They lower your HDL (the good cholesterol)

Raise LDL (the bad cholesterol)

Raise L/(a) - promotes atherosclerosis and clotting

Reduces blood vessel function

Promotes diabetes, hypertension and obesity

Damage cell membranes

Create free radicals (and that is linked to cancer of all types)

Interferes with the conversion and use of DHA and EPA (the ridiculously important omega-3s)

Just to name a few….they are bad. Period. Avoid them.

So what are they in?? Well, luckily, trans fats have been taken out of a lot of processed foods but don't be fooled into thinking those packages with the big "NO TRANS FATS!!" exclamation are good for you. Technically speaking, a food company can still put "no trans fats" as long as there isn't more than 0.5 grams of trans fats in the product. And that is 0.5 per serving size. So you tell me the last time you actually ate a serving size of potato chips. Or a serving size of Oreo cookie. It's OK, no one's watching, you can be honest with yourself.

What do you look for on the label to let you know if there are nasty fats in there that you shouldn't be eating? Anything that has the word "hydrogenated" in it. And quite frankly, that is going to be a lot of your name brand snacks on the shelves of most grocery stores. Because one of the big reasons the food companies started using these hydrogenated oils is because a hydrogenated oil has a longer shelf life. You've made it more "stable" (forget the fact that you've made it into something bad for you, as long as it's stable that's all we care about). It's difficult to turn a profit on food that spoils quickly. 

Which leads me back to my boy Michael Pollan. What was his eater's manifesto? Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. The "eat food" part is a HUGE step. Because I promise you, anything you are getting that's in a box or is cooked with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils is not food. Food is supposed to rot. When you are eating food you are eating something that was once alive and thriving in mother nature. When you eat something that can sit on a shelf for months (or years) then you are not eating food. For the most part…we can talk about bulk grains and canned goods another time. But hopefully you get the picture.

So this first, small step towards eating better is actually quite a big one. If you do some more research on hydrogenated oils and trans fatty acids I promise you that you will not like what you find. And if you have children, you will definitely think twice about the groundwork you are laying down towards their overall health. I plan on adding a lot more information to this topic as the month goes on (there's a TON to sift through!) but google trans fats and hydrogenated oils and see what pops up. 

This month I'll show you a list of ingredients to avoid if you wish to live without these nasty oils in your body. You can take this list and use it as a step towards better health!