Whether it is the grease leftover in the pan after frying bacon or it is the oily stuff squeezed out of olives, fats are a fascinating subject.  Most of us just think fat is fat.  Mostly we look at how much fat is in a food and decide whether the food is good for us or not.  This is because of 60 plus years of intelligence numbing public relations by the big bucks food industry.  They have been in control of public health policy since the late 1950s.  They invented and promoted the food health pyramid.  You know, the one we grew up on – with 6 to 11 servings of grains and starchy foods as the bottom base, then some fruits and veggies above that, then even less dairy and meat above that, and at the very top was fats to be used sparingly.  It never made sense to me.  How could the only 2 to 3 servings of milk and cheese possibly give you enough milk to go with your 6 to 11 bowls of cereal a day?

Back then, this pyramid was really the pyramid of which foods were the cheapest to produce with the highest profit (cereal and bread).  It had nothing to do with health and is directly responsible for the current epidemic of metabolic syndrome producing diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer – all our biggest killers.  Before this market brainwashing, Americans lived on some variation of meat and potatoes.  The scary thing is that this is not a conspiracy, this is how our system makes decisions routinely.  No backroom subtlety is needed.  Experts are generated by research dollars provided by those selling products, either directly or through research grants at universities.  Research publications only get to print those studies that are submitted in hopes of generating funding for the next year – in other words, those that say what the big businesses want them to say.  Studies that don't show what is desired never see the light of day.  It is the same thing we are experiencing right now – whoever controls the story that is seen and heard, controls the outcome.

The problem is that selling the profitable bad health pyramid eventually produced so much bad health that the truth could no longer be covered up (although they continue to try every day.)  This pyramid contained two main lies – cheap carbs are good for you and fats are bad for you.  This began with a made up hypothesis build on faulty research data that fats caused a hardening of the arteries and heart attacks.  This was called the cholesterol hypothesis.  It was marketed and hyped until it became gospel.  Anyone who is familiar with the scientific method at all knows that a hypothesis is just a first guess, without any testing at all.  After a ton of tests and studies, you get to form a theory which is then presented to the scientific community to see if they can tear it apart.  A hypothesis is just a guess based on observation, which was turned into holy nutritional truth through the magic of marketing and pre-paid experts.  America ate it up, literally.  It is still being defended in the form of “healthy plant-based diets” - another name for cheap high-profit carbohydrate-based foods.  Look at your “plant-based” burgers that cost you, the consumer, as much or more than real beef burgers, yet the ingredients cost the manufacturer less than one-tenth as much as meat does.  This does not mean that you can't create a healthy plant-based diet with lots of personal effort.  You can.  It is just that almost no one does – it is too much work.

The cheap carbs were not the greatest of the two lies.  The “fat is bad” was the worst lie.  The danger was in that agribusiness replaced the traditional fats in our diet with -  vegetable oils.  You see, the real reason for the promotion of the cholesterol hypothesis was to promote the sales of the newest American food source – vegetable oils.  This began with corn oil and soy oil and quickly spread to include safflower, sunflower, cottonseed, peanut, and eventually canola, grape seed, and rice bran oil.  The traditional oils of butter, bacon fat, lard, tallow, palm oil, and coconut oil were made the new enemy.  These saturated fats were at the top of the food pyramid and should rarely be used.  But carbs taste like cardboard without some sort of fat added to them.  These new oils came to the rescue of the American palate with the invention of margarine and everything deep-fried.  The story that was invented was that it was the solid saturated fats that were evil and would clog up your arteries, but the liquid fats were good for you and would never clog up your arteries.  After all, they were liquid so how could they?  The beauty of a good lie is in its simplicity and apparent appeal to common sense.

Thinking fats are all the same is like thinking people are all the same – it just ain't true.  The same is true of comparing solid fats to oils.  In reality oils and fats are made up of dozens of different kinds of fatty acid molecules, and each one has a different effect on our health – some good and some bad.  The absolute worst offender for our health is the polyunsaturated fats, especially of a fatty acid called linoleic acid.  It is the basic molecule that our body uses to make pain – the type of pain that you treat with aspirin, Tylenol, or ibuprofen.  A little is important for health, but most of us have 10 to 20 times as much as we should have in our bloodstream because of our diet.  Our body can not make this fatty acid molecule.  It has to come from food – and boy does it!  Guess what the richest sources of this dangerous fatty acid are?  You guessed it – vegetable oils.  Most vegetable oils are 50% to 70% made of linoleic acid.  Inflammation is the main driver of chronic health diseases, and linoleic is the main driver of inflammation in our body!  Put simply, vegetable oils are the main cause of most chronic health diseases.
 

Vegetable Oils = Pain, Suffering, & Slow Death 

For those of us already on the slippery slope into chronic inflammation, it is important to realize that this evil linoleic acid is found in more places than just vegetable oils.  They are the worst offenders, but even olive oil, avocado oil, and palm oil are about 10% linoleic acid.  Fish and meats that are fed a diet of grains will be filled with the linoleic acid that was in the feed grains.  That is why I recommend pasture-raised grass-fed meats and wild-caught fish only.

Inflammation deniers will say “where is the proof that linoleic acid is bad?”  At this point, there are literally library shelves filled with books and studies showing this proof.  But for me, possibly the greatest proof is that the evidence keeps piling up in spite of all the effort to squash this finding.  The proof is so undeniable that even the massive marketing of big business to stop this finding from coming out has failed.  The evidence is just too overwhelming.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Every one of these many different fatty acids has a different effect on our bodies.  The research into this is blooming right now.  Much more is yet to be revealed.  These are exciting times for us nutrition nerds.

I am not going to go into the biochemistry and physiology of how linoleic acid damages the body as I doubt but one person in a thousand cares.  I think Joseph Mercola is writing a book on this subject that will be out in about a year if you are interested.  For our purposes, our big dietary number one goal is to eliminate linoleic acid from our diet and lives.  You can't possibly get all of it out nor should you.  A tiny bit is essential – like 1 to 2 grams a day – ½ teaspoon.  How much oil do you suppose is in the food you eat?  Look at the fat grams on the foods you eat.  The nutrition label lists the polyunsaturated fat content per serving.  This is primarily the linoleic acid content.  I just checked the label from Best Foods Mayonnaise.  Each serving of 1 tablespoon has 6 grams of polyunsaturated fat.  Already this is 3 to 6 times what I want for a whole day from one serving of mayo.  You can quickly see how we get 20 times what we need in a day.  If your car needs a tank of gas, what happens if we pour 20 tanks of gas into the car and try to drive away?  In-flame-ation?

So what fats are safe to eat?  The exact opposite of what the food pyramid promoted.  Butter, tallow, coconut oil, and macadamia nut oil are your best choices with only 1 to 2% linoleic acid in them.  The next best will be your primarily monosaturated fats like olive and avocado oils with 10% linoleic acid content.  It will take almost a year for your body to remove all the unwanted polyunsaturated oils from your system if you cut out the bad stuff from your diet.  But the opportunity here is to reduce many of the inflammation pathways in your body and start your process of healing from all that damage.

Take care,

David


There are only 15 copies left of the Good Job Journal at the office.  These journals counter the constant stream of negative criticism we get from others and ourselves.  Just a minute each day spent jotting down  what you did well during the day helps you to see yourself in a whole new light.  We are better than we give ourselves credit for, but we don't see it because we have been taught to ignore the good and focus on the bad.  Unfortunately this robs us of the confidence to tackle life with zest and enthusiasm.  Get your self transformation tool now for only $10.

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Ellen update:    

It looks like another mid-January sunny day here in the post global warming Sacramento winter.  Ellen was able to take in some sun's rays while I was raking up the billions of liquid amber spiky balls donated to our front yard by our neighbors lovely tree.  Getting some real sunlight is such a valuable thing, especially with all this indoor time lately.  It is a good way to meet folks from all over the neighborhood as people are walking the street in droves.