Ok, so I’ve talked about why Fat Doesn’t Make You Fat, and I’ve talked about why You Don’t Need Carbs. Now I want to viciously attack another “healthy” food staple. Namely, processed oils.
Or as I’ll likely refer to them more commonly, inflammatory oils.
Now, there are fancy sounding words again for these kinds of things. But I’ll try to keep it simple.
Oils are fats. And I’ve been telling you that fat is good, right? So that must mean that oils and fats are all the same, and they’re interchangeable.
That’s absolutely NOT THE CASE.
In fact, there are very FEW types of oils and fats that you should EVER eat, and the rest you should avoid as much as humanly possible.
I’ll give you a list of which is which in just a second.
First, what does it mean for an oil to be inflammatory? Well, it has to be an oil that causes your body to become inflamed when you eat it.
“Thanks for nothing, Captain Obvious!”
Let me drastically oversimplify this subject, and I will address the extra-nerdy science stuff in a different post at a later time for those who are interested in such things.
Inflammatory oils are high in Omega-6 fats, and low in Omega-3 fats. Omega-6 fats cause your body to get swollen (inflamed), and reduce your body’s ability to absorb the much better-for-you Omega-3 fats.
Nerd stuff over. But what does this mean? What’s bad about inflammation?
Here’s a list of conditions that are “inflammatory diseases”, and are caused by chronic inflammation in the body:
- Heart disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- Obesity
- Metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetes
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Inflammatory bowel syndrome
- Macular degeneration (eye damage and blindness)
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Asthma
- Cancer
- Psychiatric disorders (Mental Illness, as well as Degenerative Brain Diseases like Alzheimer’s)
- Autoimmune disease
Not a good list, right? You should probably avoid eating foods that cause you to get these conditions.
So what oils are we trying to avoid?
Here’s a list of the most common ones you encounter, that should be avoided as much as possible:
- Canola Oil
- Vegetable Oil
- Soybean Oil
- Safflower Oil
- Corn Oil
- Sunflower Oil
- Flaxseed Oil
If you read You’ve Been Lied To… Your Body Doesn’t Need Carbs, then you might remember when I said you’d be appalled at what’s in your food when you look at labels. I wasn’t talking about “chemicals”, or GMOs, or fat, or salt, or cholesterol, or any of those other things that are commonly demonized as “unhealthy”.
No, I was talking about THESE OILS.
This is also why it will only really take you 5 seconds to look at a food label and decide if it’s something you should eat. In fact, here are the two questions I am looking to answer when I look at a food label:
- How many grams of carbs are there?
- Does it contain any inflammatory oils?
That’s it. If I look at a label and a food has 40g of carbs per serving and Soybean Oil, I’m saying “Nope!” and putting it back. You’re going to be SHOCKED at how FEW foods there are in boxes and bottles that DON’T have inflammatory oils. (I say boxes and bottles, because meat and veggies tend NOT to have all this crap packed in.)
And why are these oils so common? There are two answers:
- Because they’re CHEAP
- Because people have been told they’re “healthy”
And I would argue that number 2 is BECAUSE of number 1. What better way to cut product costs than to convince government to tell everyone that the cheap, inflammatory oils are good for you?
The official Health.gov nutritional guidelines tell you to AVOID “bad” solid fats like Butter and Coconut Oil, and to eat “healthy” fats like Soybean Oil and Canola Oil. Harvard Health and Heart.org SAY THE SAME THING.
This is exactly wrong.
And it’s borderline criminal for people who claim to be protecting heart health to advocate eating inflammatory oils that CAUSE HEART DISEASE.
But that’s a more detailed issue for another time as well.
So let’s get to the useful part. What oils and fats SHOULD I eat?
Well it’s a very short list, and for simplicity I would recommend by starting out ONLY eating these fats and oils, and assuming EVERY OTHER OIL is going to kill you. Because it’s not far from the truth.
- Butter (NOT Margarine! That’s Canola Oil! Avoid “butter” and Not Butter! that is made with inflammatory oils!)
- Lard or Tallow (Literally pork and beef fat.)
- Olive Oil (Extra Virgin, preferred)
- Coconut Oil (Again, Virgins are preferred 😉)
- Avocado Oil
There are a small number of others, but they’re more rare and expensive, and the list above covers the most common, delicious, and affordable.
Following these simple guidelines I’ve provided in this post and the ones linked above will give you about 80% of the health results you WANT in your life. I’ll address the many and varied benefits in more depth in the future, but for now, make 80-90% of your diet high-fat foods and oils, while AVOIDING inflammatory oils and carbs, and I GUARANTEE you’ll look and feel better within a matter of DAYS.
Stick around, there’s plenty more to come!
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