Since your blood vessel blockages hardly have any fat cells in them, why are dietary fats blamed for it?
When excess carbohydrates or proteins are converted into fats for storage in your adipose tissues, they are deposited as saturated fats [1]. Is this nature’s mistake for all to suffer?
If not, then how can saturated fat from your foods be a risk factor for heart disease & stroke, but not those from your own body fat? [2]
A human baby is always born quite fatty as compared to the young ones of other mammals. Still every human mother’s milk has ~33% fat as compared to carbohydrates & proteins.
Why does nature put in the effort to provide that, if it wasn’t any good, as low fat food sellers would like you to believe?
Fats beat oils, all the time
Saturated fats (like butter & coconut oil) are needed for :
- protection of organs (padding),
- body insulation (cold weather),
- hormone synthesis,
- immune function,
- cellular signalling,
- protein modification,
- nutrient absorption (Vitamin A, D, E, K, minerals…),
- energy storage & production. [13]
These saturated oils have nourished our forefathers for millennia without causing any of the killer diseases [3]:
1. A Swedish study concluded that milk fats — whole milk, cream, butter and cheese — actually reduce the risk of a heart attack! [4]
2. Low intake of total fat and lauric acid from dairy products were found to be associated with acute myocardial infarction [5].
3. Dr Franceschi’s team conducted a controlled study of over 5000 Italian women between 1991 and 1994 to assess the influence of high intakes of fat on breast cancer risk [6].
His conclusion: “The risk of breast cancer decreased with increasing total fat intake . . . .”
As people switched to unsaturated oils, the incidences of heart disease, etc. have shot up dramatically [7].
No wonder a Dutch study of males, aged 69-89, suggests that a high intake of omega-6 fatty acids (abounding in vegetable oils) is “positively associated with cognitive impairment [8].
Here are some problems with “heart-healthy” unsaturated oils :
1. Cooking oxidizes their unsaturated carbon-bonds forming lipid peroxides which are not natural food chemicals & hence poisonous for your body.
High temperature heating of oils (e.g. frying foods) also produces large numbers of highly-Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) [11]
2. Unrefined oils (soybean, sunflower, safflower, canola, corn, etc.) have lots of cloudy “impurities” which are actually naturally occurring nutrients which your body needs to make better use of the oil.
These are part of the vitamins, phytochemicals, minerals, etc. which were together operating the life-processes within the plant / tree from which the oil was extracted.
Some of these nutrients, for e.g. Vitamin E, may act as an anti-oxidant thus increasing the shelf life of the unrefined oil while others, for e.g. chlorophyll in extra-virgin olive oil that is greenish in color, may be prone to oxidative damage.
Their spoilage releases free-radical marauders. (Yellowish olive oil is squeezed out of mature olives & so it has lesser chlorophyll in it.)
To increase their shelf life, all the nutrients are filtered out of unrefined unsaturated oils & then man-made preservatives (310-312, 319-321) & color are added into those oils.
Btw,
- all commercial unsaturated oils are chemically extracted these days, using hexane – a petroleum fraction – as a solvent.
- refining is done at temperatures as high as 450 deg. C / 1200 deg. F! Can you still call it a ‘food’?
- Nickel, a heavy metal, is used as a catalyst while “refining” those oil! [12]
3. Unsaturated vegetable oils mostly provide omega-6 fatty acids (linoleic acid) only. But very little omega-6 is needed by the body to fulfill it’s requirements. You can get all that directly from natural foods unless you are an elderly person.
That’s why an upper limit of seven per cent was advised by Professor Scott Grundy for polyunsaturated oil consumption[9]. Excess of it causes [10] :
- immune system dysfunction
- insulin resistance,
- free radical damage in the blood vessels which initiates plaque buildup,
- heart disease / stroke,
- liver toxicity,
- damages to the reproductive organs and lungs,
- digestive disorders,
- weight gain,
- autoimmune diseases,
- premature aging,
- impaired growth,
- cancer growth in experimental animals,
- may provoke gall stones in human beings.
Large amounts of polyunsaturated fats are new to the human diet. Atmost, they may be occasionally drizzled over salads, etc.
In India, scientists attribute the increase in heart disease and type 2 diabetes to the replacement of traditional cooking fats, such as ghee (clarified butter) and coconut oil, with polyunsaturated vegetable oils [17].
4. Unsaturated vegetable oils rarely have any omega-3 fatty acids.
Amongst the common cooking oils, the ones that do have omega-3 fats (e.g. mustard oil) are not able to supply it to you effectively because they have much higher amounts of omega-6 fatty acids which competes with their minuscule portion of omega-3 fatty acids during digestion.
Your foods must supply omega-3 & omega-6 fatty acids in the range of 1:1 to 1:2. A healthy brain has the omega-3s & omega-6s in the 1:1 ratio. A typical modern diet is atleast 10 times worse than that [10].
Would you instead like to enjoy novel dishes that restore back the critical omega-3:omega-6 balance in your favor?
Omega-3 oils (alpha/gamma-linolenic acid) are essential for your -
- Cell repair,
- Cell membranes response to insulin, neurotransmitters and other messengers.
- Brain and nerve functions.
- Their deficiency may cause impaired mood, learning, hyperactivity, depression, brain allergies, schizophrenia, etc.
And that’s not the end of the tragedy; the trans-fats saga is already well known so I’ll skip that for now.
In the meantime rest assures there is no evidence that moderate consumption of saturated fats and cholesterol promotes atherosclerosis or heart attacks.
The bad rap they have received started after the end of world-war II when the power-broking urea manufacturers were left with empty production lines because at that time urea was only a raw material for ammunition.
It wasn’t used as an artificial fertilizer back then.
An elaborate “scientific” propaganda was engineered by the food cartel to kill the traditional saturated oil market & herd the masses towards oil extracted from their cash-crops of soyabean; to which corn, cotton-seed & rapeseed / canola were added lateron.
These crops could use all the urea they would supply. Is it a mere coincidence that these seeds were exactly the 1st ones to be genetically modified for your ‘welfare’ [14, 15]? Genetically corrupted sunflower is on your way too [16].
Otherwise why is corn cultivation subsidized in the US, mostly to the benefit of this one big corporation & against WTO regulations? As part of the long-standing powerbroking gang, they know how to get their way through.
Those ‘busy’ people, who ‘unknowingly’ consume their products, haven’t they become ‘unknowing’ sponsors of the forbidding food-cartel’s evil empire?
As per both universal & man-made laws, does an ‘unknowingly’ committed crime absolve one from the punishment it deserves?
Revert back to “What’s your Nutritional Quotient?”
Or head over for free MicroVita SuperHealth™ downloads.
References :
3. Patty W Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B Hu, Ronald M Krauss
“Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease”
4. Saturated dairy reduces heart-attack risk
5. Lopes C, Aro A, Azevedo A, Ramos E, Barros H. Intake and adipose tissue composition of fatty acids and risk of myocardial infarction in a male Portuguese community sample. J Am Diet Assoc. 2007 Feb;107(2):276-86. Department of Epidemiology, University of Porto Medical School, Portugal.
6. Franceschi S, et.al Intake of macronutrients and risk of breast cancer. Lancet 1996;347:1351-6
7. Kark JD, Kaufmann NA, Binka F, Goldberger N, Berry EM. Adipose tissue n-6 fatty acids and acute myocardial infarction in a population consuming a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids Epidemiology Unit, Department of Social Medicine, Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel.
8. American Journal of Epidemiol 1997 January 1;145(1):33-41
11. Phyllis A. Balch, CNC, Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 4th Edition: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies Using Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs & Food Supplements
12. Dangers of hydrogenated oil
13. Importance of saturated fats
14. How to avoid genetically modified (GM) foods
16. Vegetable oils
17. Journal of Indian Med Assoc, 1998; 96: 304-7.
Taste-drive a more practical cuisine that doesn’t requires so much oil.
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What are ya’ thinkin’?