Healthy And Not So Healthy Fats And Oils For Cooking

I was planning to write a blog article today, so when one of my clients asked me last night about using sunflower oil for cooking I thought I would write about that subject. These days there are so many options and so much marketing around the cooking oil industry that it is hard to know what to use and when for healthy living. I suggest going back to basics and using butter and lard for much of your cooking and frying, extra virgin olive oil for salads and drizzling, and coconut oil for baking, frying and general health as well as fat loss.

Here is a brief summary of some common fats and oils:

Organic beef dripping and lard are both largely saturated fats, and are therefore stable when heated to high temperatures, making them suitable for frying in the kitchen. If you get high quality lard from outdoor reared livestock it will also be a good source of vitamin D.

Butter is also high in saturated fat, and is a stable fat to use for cooking, baking and frying, also offering a subtle taste to the food that you are preparing. When the butter is from organic, pasture-fed dairy herds it is rich in the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, as well catalysts that help the body to absorb the nutrients in the rest of the meal.

Olive oil contains 75% oleic acid, a stable monounsaturated fat, with small amounts of saturated fat as well as Omega-3 and 6 fatty acids. Due to the low saturated fat content it is only suitably for frying at low to moderate temperatures, and is best used cold, drizzled on salads and in dressings and sauces. Extra virgin olive oil is best, is rich in antioxidants and is the safest of all the vegetable oils. Do not over use this oil though as the longer chain fatty acids tend to contribute towards the storage of body. I would not use olive oil on a daily basis.

Coconut oil is one of the finest fats available for human consumption, rich in lauric acid, a powerful antimicrobial agent. It has been used by athletes and bodybuilders for generations, and research has shown that it can increase metabolism and the body’s ability to burn fat. Not all coconut oils and products are equal though, and many are ruined by modern production techniques. I recommend extra virgin coconut oil, and buy mine from www.naturalfoodfinder.co.uk.

Vegetable, sunflower, corn and soy oils are all high in Omega-6. There is extensive research into the negative effects of consumption of excess Omega-6, and to that end these oils are best avoided. They should never be heated up and then consumed, due to being very unstable at high temperatures.

Peanut and sesame oils share a number of characteristics and are both relatively stable when heated so can be used for frying and cooking. They both have high levels of Omega-6 though and to that end should not be used regularly, instead use them for the occasional stir fry as they taste great.

That was a quick summary of some common cooking fats and oils, and if you have any questions or want to know about other fats, just leave a comment or email me.

Reference: Fallon, S (1999) Nourishing Traditions

Eat Natural

I like to try and eat a natural, whole food diet as much as possible as I believe that it is the best way to eat for health, vitality, and well being. So, what is eating natural?

Eating natural is eating food in its natural state with minimal processing, human interference and packaging all of which can contaminate, alter and degrade the qualities of our food. It goes back to the old saying,
“You are what you eat.”
This statement is totally true as it is the food that we eat that is used to construct every cell and tissue in our bodies from your little toe to you left lung and everything in between. If we eat rubbish then the quality of our cells will be rubbish, and we will be less able to function healthily and properly, making us more susceptible to disease and injury. If we eat high quality food full of nutrients then we will build strong, robust and healthy bodies.

To eat a natural diet the most important thing to consider is the origin of the food. Ideally fruit and vegetables will be seasonally grown in high quality organic soil, and then sold fresh in their natural state. If we buy low quality fruit and veg that has been factory farmed and covered in pesticides and soaked in fertilizers a number of things are likely to happen to the quality of the food. Firstly traces of the chemicals used to force it to grow quickly will remain in the plant tissue and will ultimately end up in your body where you will either excrete it or store it away in your fat cells as the body is unable to cope with it properly. Secondly the actual veg has grown in low quality soil, lacking in nutrients, meaning that the end product is going to be similarly lacking in essential vitamins and minerals. There is also the environmental effect of intensive farming to consider, but that is a whole new blog post!!

The meat and poultry that we eat also has similar considerations. What was the animal fed? How did it live? If the answer is that it lived indoors its entire life, being fed a cocktail or growth hormones and antibiotics then you really need to avoid it. Unfortunately this is the case with much of the supermarket meat available to us today. Ideally you should pay a little more and get grass fed beef and lamb, and proper free range chicken and eggs that have been allowed to grow at their natural speed in a natural environment. Your local butcher should know the origin of all of his products and should be able to advise you on how the animals are reared. Animals raised and looked after properly produce higher quality meat with more nutrients that ultimately tastes better. Why aren’t antibiotics working as well as they used to? Because we eat so many traces of antibiotics day to day in the low grade supermarket meat that we buy and consume in such vast amounts!!

This is only meant as a short introduction, I could go on all day about eating whole natural foods. I just want to stimulate your own interest and get you researching and reading. In the meantime try an organic veg delivery from Abel and Cole, or Riverford, and enjoy the difference in quality and taste for only a little more money. Your body will thank you for it.

Ben

Raw Milk is Good Milk

Have you heard of raw milk? Do you know what it is? Well you should do, as raw milk is what comes directly out of the cow when it is milked. This nutritionally rich super food is actually greatly different from what we now call milk and buy in our supermarkets and local shops.
Before we understand raw milk we should first have a look at how the milk we buy in the shops is prepared, manipulated, and ultimately ruined for human consumption. Pasteurisation is the first step in modern milk production, taking raw milk from the cow and passing it between hot plates, quickly heating it to about 70 degrees Celsius, before flash cooling and continuing on through the processing plant. So, what’s the problem? We were all taught at school about how pasteurisation kills bacteria, and how it is a great victory of science over disease and illness so surely it is for our own good? The simple answer is that the pasteurisation process causes irreparable damage to the milk in the following ways: Firstly it does kill all or most of the bacteria in the milk, but this includes the good bacteria like the probiotic ones in those fashionable little yoghurt drinks. These bacteria are beneficial to the health of our gut and digestive system, and by ingesting them we can remain healthy and are much less likely to have food allergies and intolerances. Pasteurisation also kills the enzymes needed to allow us to properly digest the proteins and other nutrients from the milk. The simple fact is that if the milk comes from healthy, well looked after cows in the first place, that there should not be any bad bacteria in the milk. They should be free of Tuberculosis and the other diseases that we are told we can catch if we don’t pasteurise our dairy products.
The next step is homogenisation and this is done to make the milk more pleasing to the eye and to stop it from separating with a layer of cream at the top. The modern perception is that cream is fatty, so is bad for you, so the milk producers change it to fit what they think we want. To do this the pasteurised milk is passed through tiny holes at high pressure, breaking down the fat globules so that they are so small that they are unable to re-form and create the layer of cream on top. During this process the previously good, healthy cholesterol found in raw milk becomes oxidised making it damaging to our health and putting us at increased risk of coronary heart disease.
Finally milk is skimmed, and depending on the degree of skimming it takes the fat content down from about 4% in raw milk to as low as 0.1% in skimmed. What we are left with is devoid of nutrition and is little more than white water.
So....... what to do? The best thing I believe you can do is to find a raw milk supplier, and try it. It is usually available at farmers markets as well as direct from farms. You can’t buy it in the shops though - which to me is criminal! If you can’t get raw milk the second best option is un-homogenised milk that is often available in organic and health food shops as well as farm shops across the country. I would not drink supermarket milk FULL STOP.
Raw milk is creamy and tasty. It is natural and healthy, giving us energy and high quality protein and you and your family should be drinking it.