Fats

Remove:  Canola Oil, Vegetable Oil, Spray Oils, Pam

Replace With:  High heat cooking and light sautéing use coconut oil, butter, palm kernel oil, or high quality lard.  For baking or adding to dishes already prepared use cold pressed organic olive oil (in dark glass containers)

Here’s Why:     Just like nuts, vegetable oils easily rancid and become carcinogenic.  Also, if you start reading labels, you’ll find that these vegetable oils, particularly canola oil, are virtually used in everything packaged so leave them out of your kitchen cupboard.  Inflammation – too much omega 6 fatty acid… primarily processed oils.

Butter

Remove:  Margarine, other fake butters…

Replace With:   Real Butter ( European Style, Cultured, Icelandic Grass Fed), Ghee, Coconut Butter

Here’s Why:            

Interesting, have you heard that Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys!   When it killed the turkeys they added yellow coloring and flavoring to it to make it more appealing and sold it to the general public to use in place of butter… Ok – that may actually just be an rumor… but a fun fake fact nonetheless…!

The real truth however is not much better… margarine really shouldn’t be consumed… it’s a trans fat –   (hydrogenated Oils). Margarine is but one molecule away from being Plastic !  Not a typo, that does say PLASTIC.  This is due to hydrogenation. Margarine increases cholesterol, increases the risk of cancers up to five fold, lowers the quality of breast milk, and decreases immune function.

Butter, slightly higher in saturated fats, increases the absorption of many other nutrients in food, tastes delicious, and like meat that comes from healthy animals can actually  lower your cholesterol – not raise it!

Nuts and Seeds

Remove:  Processed Nut Butters

Replace With:  Natural organic nut butters, or try making your own raw nut butters.   

You can purchase these at your local market or even better, nut butters are extremely simple to make yourself:

Here’s Why:

The Skippy website claims they only use the freshest peanuts in their peanut butter.  That’s great!  It’s too bad their  ingredient list also includes Sugar, Salt, and Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (cottonseed, soybean, and grapeseed) (see more on hydrogenated oils).  

Note:  It’s important to store nut butters in your fridge because their oils are sensitive to light, heat, and air.  This makes them fragile, in that they are highly oxidizing and carcinogenic (cancer causing).

Recipe Tip:   In a food processor place 2 cups of your favorite raw nuts, Grind until it looks like sand.  Add 1/2 cup coconut oil, a dash of celtic sea salt, and some raw honey or grade B maple syrup (not too much).  Blend until it is at your desired consistency.  Store in an airtight container in your fridge, and you’re in for a treat!  See our blog for more nut butter recipes.

EGGS

Remove:        Commercial Eggs and Commercial Poultry                

Replace With: Pasture Raised Free range, cage free, free roaming, organic chicken and poultry

Here’s Why:            

The fate of a commercially raised chicken is quite sad.  Commercial chickens are trapped in small cages where they can hardly move, never see sunlight, their beaks chopped off to avoid pecking one another.  They can hardly hold themselves up because they have been injected with hormones that enhance the size of their  breasts to produce more meat for consumers.  These poor abused animals can barely be called a chicken, and provide the consumer with unhealthy eggs and unhealthy meat.  So unhealthy in fact that the ratio of omega 6 to omega 3’s , which should be equal in eggs can actually change to a 16-1 ratio. Over consumption of omega 6’s can increase cholesterol! This scenario makes it understandable why some people want to quit eating animal products altogether.  It is truly disgusting how low the food industry and certain commercial farming will stoop for financial gain. Animal torture and cruelty to mass produce poor quality food is a real thing.  It is up to the consumer to choose to do the right thing and not allow themselves to remain ignorant to these practices for their own convenience – Ok, that’s my soap box speech!

There are two types of healthy fats and you might be surprised to know that they are both saturated and unsaturated. You can easily recognize the difference by how they respond to room temperature.  The unsaturated fats are liquid at room temp…. while saturated fats are generally solid.

The unsaturated variety makes up your omega fatty acids  3-6-and 9. These fats are primarily found in nuts, seeds, vegetable oils, and fish.  You may have heard health professionals touting the benefits of consuming flax seed and fish oil.  This is because omega fatty acids have anti-inflammatory benefits among many other things.  Despite what we’ve been brain-washed, saturated fats also come equipped with many health benefits.   These fats are found in meat, dairy, and some tropical fruits including:

• Whole Eggs

• Fat on the meat from grass fed animals
• Raw cheeses (meaning they are not exposed to heat or pasteurization)
• Raw Butter
• Clarified butter (also known as Ghee)
• Heavy cream
• Coconut Meat
• Avocado
• Coconut oils
• Palm kernel oil
• And even Lard from naturally raised grass fed animals.

The best cooking oils come from saturated fats.  These fats remain stable when exposed to the higher temperatures. The unsaturated vegetable oils you may be used to using – such as safflower, canola and even olive oil are unstable when exposed to light, heat, or air.  This means the oil easily oxidizes.  Oxidization will damage the oil, and can pose a risk to the cells of your body if consumed often.

Protect your cells and get used to cooking with those fats that are solid at room temperature – these again would include coconut oil, palm kernel oil, full fat butter, Ghee, or lard from grass fed animals only.

There are other benefits of consuming saturated fats such as a fatty acid called CLA.

All saturated fat comes equipped with this important fatty acid also known as conjugated linoleic acid.  CLA acts as a fat emulsifier, converting fats in the body to lean muscle.  CLA is found in almost all animal proteins including red meat and dairy, as well as tropical oils such as coconut oil and palm kernel oil.

In addition to being a fat emulsifier, Studies have shown that CLA interferes with a substance in the body called lipoprotein lipase.  This substance is partially responsible for storing fats.  When CLA interferes with it, the body is able to use the stored fat and turn it into energy, hence leading to weight loss.

There are many other medical benefits associated with the consumption of CLA found in animal fats and tropical oils:

• The fats in these valuable food sources contain anti-stiffness agents which also act as an anti-inflammatory.
• All saturated fats contain fat soluble vitamins which enable the body to absorb nutrients.  This means you will absorb the nutrients in your vegetables much more efficiently if you steam or broil them with butter or coconut oil.
• Fats cushion the organs and provide a storage place for toxins
• Fats coat and protect our cells, acting as a powerful anti-oxidant resulting in anti-aging benefits, as well as lowering the risk of life threatening illnesses such as cancer.
• Fats contain anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal substances that play a very important role in protecting our bodies from pathogens and keeping our immune system strong and supported
• Fats provide the raw material for hormones specifically for the thyroid, which regulates our internal temperature

And if that’s not enough, fats make our food taste better and keep us full for longer therefore cutting down on the frequency a person needs to eat and also helping to regulate blood sugar.  So, finally you can get rid of the guilt around consuming the valuable fats you’ve been brainwashed to avoid… and reap the benefits of what saturated fats have to offer.