Fat

Fats from animals and vegetables are our best source of energy. They are necessary for hormone production and regulation, cell membrane health and transporting/providing fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E & K. Fats provide us with a slow prolonged release of energy, helping us to go longer without hunger, regulating blood sugar, feeding our bodies the energy we need at a nice controlled pace.

We have been told that fat, saturated especially, is evil and makes us fat, causes heart disease… This simply is not true. It has more to do with the quality of the fat. If we tested a cheap car and it broke down would we let it put us off cars? Or would we just buy a better car? Healthy saturated fats from high quality unprocessed animal and vegetable sources are a great source of energy. When we study the healthy and lean people we see that they eat plenty of high quality fat. In fact they get most of their calories from fat, and most of that is animal fat.

Most grass fed land animal fat is only 40% saturated fat, the rest is made up of polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and omega 3 fatty acids. Wild animals and fish have even less saturated and more omega 3’s.

The cheap corn/grain fed animals and farmed fish have more saturated fats and less omega 3’s. They also have a much higher total fat percentage. Just like us when we eat processed carbs we get fat and unhealthy. So do farmed animals. Fat is also where toxins are stored, in animals and humans alike. Beware of eating toxic animal fat from farmed fish and corn-fed mammals.

The quality of the meat you choose determines the quality of the proteins and fats you consume. Healthy farming = healthy animals = healthy you.

So as we learnt earlier, quick sharp spikes in blood sugar cause our bodies to store fat. Slow even blood sugar keeps our metabolisms up, and blood sugar stable. Fat does not make you fat. In fact we need fat. We do not need carbs and sugars. Our bodies turn fat into blood sugar very easily and efficiently. We can not turn carbs into fats. We need fat to transport hormones and chemical signals and many other things. If you stopped eating fat you would die within 1 month. If you stopped eating carbs you would live a long healthy life and have less body fat. We need fat. We do not need carbs.  Types of fats..?

Good quality animal fat, avocado, olive, and walnut oil are great for salads. Coconut oil, ghee and rendered animal fat are great for cooking or adding to steamed vegies, macadamia and palm oil are also ok for cooking.  Fats and oils are very temperature sensitive. If you use fat/oil for cooking make sure the oil/fat never burns/smokes or steams, if you see it starting to ‘steam’ then you have heated too much.

Most of all naturally fatty/oily foods taste great!!