Anytime we think of “dieting” or “eating clean” there are certain foods that come to mind that we think we can’t live without. You probably know exactly which foods you’re emotionally attached to, right?
I shared my favorite brown rice tortillas for your gluten-free breakfast burritos, liquid stevia to sweeten your coffee, and hard kombucha as an option for a “cleaner” cocktail.
We’ve already covered gluten, sugar and alcohol and today we are jumping into fats and oils. We’ll wrap up with dairy next week. By then you’ll be fully equipped with some new alternatives for foods you love that hindering you from living the healthy life you desire.
Fats & oils seem like a bizarre topic but when it comes to your health but it is SUPER important. You probably don’t feel as emotionally attached to your cooking spray as you do to your coffee creamer. It’s much trendier to talk about kale and acai bowls than coconut oil and ghee, but the truth is that the quality and types of fat you put into your diet play a HUGE role in how you look, feel and AGE (yikes!).
First of all, there’s an outdated belief that eating fat will make us fat. Myth! Eating the right types of dietary fat does not “make you fat”, in fact we actually need good amounts of fat in our diet to lose body fat. Another reason fat is awesome is that it doesn’t stimulate an insulin response, which means you don’t crash and burn from a blood sugar plunge. Fat keeps us mentally sharp and hormonally balanced.
When I work with new clients around making healthy swaps to their diet I can get some pushback about dropping their nightly glass of wine or favorite Starbucks pastry. Not very many people throw a temper tantrum when I ask them to swap their margarine for butter, or their Pam spray for coconut oil. What I find is that many people don’t even realize how many harmful fats they are consuming on a daily basis. Those fats are sneaky!
Let’s get into it. What are the fats that you need to ditch from your home and diet?
We want to eliminate polyunsaturated fats, also known as PUFA’s, or vegetable oils. I used to think that vegetable oil was healthy because the bottle had a picture of vegetables on the front. Isn’t it deceiving how they do that?? I was so, SO wrong.
Vegetable oils don’t actually come from broccoli and carrots, they come from seeds and are listed as canola, corn, cottonseed, soybean, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, and rice bran oil.
These oils are TOXIC, and I don’t use that term lightly! These oils undergo a harsh refining process that damages the polyunsaturated fats and mutates the molecules into toxins. These toxins promote free-radical reactions that actually damage our cellular machinery when we eat them, including our DNA, hormone receptors, enzymes and mitochondria.
I’m sure you’ve heard that it’s important to eat lots of fruits and vegetables because they contain “antioxidants”. Damaged fats are those “oxidants” that promote aging and cell damage! The fats from those seeds have been so oxidized that they are hindering your body’s process to repair and regenerate.
Take a moment to think about an olive. When you squeeze an olive it’s easy to see how a bottle of olive oil could come as a result of squeezing a whole bunch of them.
Now think about a sunflower seed or kernel of corn. How on earth does that jug of vegetable oil come out of a SUNFLOWER seed?? It requires harsh mechanical extraction followed by a solvent extraction using HEXANE. (Yes, you’ve heard that word before, but in regards to what’s in your gasoline tank. Yuck!) Before the oil winds up in that bottle it has been refined, bleached and deodorized.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not really interested in eating food that’s been bathed in hexane, then bleached and deodorized. That’s about as far from nature and “real food” as you can get!
Not only does the entire process gross me out, but the bottom line is that these types of fats are damaged and oxidized. When you cook with canola oil, spray your frying pan with “Pam”, or spread your toast with “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”, you are subjecting your body to compounds that lead to disease and can badly damage your health. The toxic compounds are hard for our cells to tolerate and lead to DNA damage, mitochondrial uncoupling, free radical cascades and other cell-damaging events that accelerate the aging process.
When I grab a bottle of salad dressing off the shelf and the ingredients list “soybean oil” I immediately think about myself covered in wrinkles. Ha! No seriously though, those nasty fats seriously contribute to accelerated aging and I know we all want to maintain our youthful skin for as long as possible.
The best advice I can give you is to start reading ingredients. These hazardous fats are used in margarine, packaged food snacks, salad dressing, and many foods that are marketed to be “healthy”. Get into the habits of reading the ingredients on the back of your food labels to spot these fats. Again, they are canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, grapeseed oil, and rice bran oil.
Now that I’ve hopefully scared the margarine right out of your fridge, let’s talk about GOOD fats you should be eating! I highly recommend adequate amounts of healthy fat in every meal throughout the day for hormone production, blood sugar regulation, and keeping your hair, skin and nails looking fab.
My favorite types of cooking fats and oils include extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, grass-fed butter and ghee, avocado oil, duck fat, lard, tallow, algae oil, sesame oil, flax seed oil, walnut oil, almond oil, and macadamia nut oil. (I don’t cook with flax, sesame and walnut oil but they are great for salad dressings!) Any of these healthy fats are a great swap for margarine, fake butters, and vegetable oils you may have in your house.
Nutrient-rich fats that come from animals raised in healthy environments (like grass-fed butter and ghee, tallow, lard, and duck fat) contain fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K which are super important for bone health, immunity, and cell production.
Just as damaged fats negatively affect our DNA and cell repair, healthy fats lead to healthy cell growth. They are anti-inflammatory and fight free-radical damage. Our body is in a constant state of repair and regeneration and healthy fats supply the essential tools we need to look and feel our best. Being vigilant about healthy fats and oils is a long-term investment for your health!
