Healing with Food Article

Fat & Oil Guide (see also Saturated Fats)

Accompanying recipe: Stir Fried Bok Choy

This fat and oil guide enables you to make informed and delicious choices. You can enjoy healthful fats, avoid bad fats and ignore the fat misinformation.

Good fats and oils add flavor. Recall the pleasure difference between a piece of toast smeared with butter and another with margarine. Additionally, quality fats enhance our health. Whereas, shoddy fats harm us.

If you’re confused about dietary fats, it’s not surprising. Most manufactured foods rely upon highly refined, cheap and bad-for-you oils. Consequently, due to advertising and funded research, the truth about fats and oils has been perverted at the cost of our collective and individual health. How astounding that the American Heart Association and government agencies still hype margarine as a healthy food!

Here’s an easy guide that enables you to make informed and delicious choices. First, some fat basics.

When a fat is liquid at room temperature it’s typically called “oil”. To be informed about fats, there are only three terms you need to know (saturated, unsaturated and fatty acid) and there’s only one fatty acid to remember (omega-3).

Fat molecules are composed of fatty acids which are either saturated or unsaturated. Every plant and animal—from spinach to you—requires both kinds of fatty acids. So, even though spinach, for example, has zero saturated fat, it contains saturated fatty acids.

Both saturated and unsaturated fats are vital for your health and below I’ve listed culinary sources for both. However, first it’s important that you know about the one necessary fatty acid not used in cooking.

Fatty Acid Supplements
Omega-3 fatty acids are important because our common food supply does not provide enough and therefore they must be taken as a supplement. Must, that is, unless you weekly eat: raw liver, wild (not farmed) fish or game, or the flesh, milk or eggs of pasture-raised animals. While traditional diets featured these foods, they’re lacking in today’s menus. Thus, the to-do about omega-3s.

Cod liver and fish oil are the superior omega-3 fatty acid sources. They strengthen both the immune and circulatory systems and provide two nutrients (DHA and EPA) critical for healthy brain function. I personally favor cod liver oil as it’s also a superior source of vitamins A and D.

Take fish oil daily as a supplement (2 teaspoons per day for adults or a soft-gel cap of 10,000 IU). Purchase a reputable brand that is molecularly distilled and sold in an opaque bottle or capsules. It’s available both flavored and unflavored. Store fish oil in a cool, dark place or refrigerate.

For some years, flax oil was mistakenly recommended as an omega-3 source. Unfortunately, we can assimilate only a fraction of its omega-3s and it lacks the essential DHA and EPA. Yes, freshly ground flax seeds are a nutritious food, but flax oil cannot replace either fish oil or the omega-3s found in a traditional diet. If you’re a vegan, your best option is an omega-3 extract from sea algae.

Culinary Fats

Sensually speaking, quality culinary fats enhance eating pleasure because of their own robust flavor and because they carry the flavor of other foods. Yet another benefit is that fats slow down stomach transit time aand so create a feeling of fullness and satisfaction.

Additionally, a food cooked in fat conveys more warmth and energy than does a food cooked in water or steam. That’s because fat is denser than water or vapor. Therefore, a sautéed carrot tastes sweeter, has greater flavor range and depth and is energetically more warming than if boiled or steamed. To get a sense of this, imagine biting into a steamed and then a sautéed carrot.

Unsaturated Culinary Fats

Omega-3s excepted, unsaturated fatty acids are abundant in grains, beans, nuts, seeds, green vegetables, extra virgin olive oil and animal fats. So, if you’re eating a variety of quality foods, you’re getting ample quality unsaturated fats.

However, if you’re eating a typical American diet, you’re not. That’s because the fatty acids in processed foods and typical supermarket oils are rancid. Normal manufacturing processes expose them to light, heat and oxygen which destroys (oxidizes) them. Because rancid fats are a carcinogen, avoid them.

(Toxic trans fats are a separate problem. They are in shortening and hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils. Starting in 2006, manufacturers—but not restaurants—must list trans fat content. Additionally, when liquid vegetable oils, like canola oil, are deodorized, up to 4.6 percent trans fats are formed. Do not consume trans fats.)

For a sense of quality unsaturated fats, imagine some whole sesame seeds. Their seed-coat protects their fatty acids from light, heat and oxygen. Eat some and you’ll obtain, along with fiber and other nutrients, vital fatty acids. Open a bottle of quality sesame oil and it smells and tastes just like sesame seeds themselves. A quality fat feels pleasurable and refreshing in your mouth. (Whereas flavorless refined oil feels greasy, viscous and unpalatable in your mouth.)

A quality oil manufacturer presses oil at temperatures under 115 °F. in the absence of light and oxygen. It’s bottled it in a black, opaque, glass or inert plastic bottle, or a tin can, to protect it from light. Because all fresh, vital foods have a limited shelf-life, reputable oil manufacturers include a “best if used by” date on the label.  Typical supermarket vegetable oils, in comparison, are “dead”. They’ll taste the same today as 25 years from now.

There are numerous liquid vegetable oils available—most of which you neither need nor want. The three quality, multi-purpose unsaturated oils are extra virgin olive oil, sesame and hazelnut oil.  They’re multi-purpose because, lacking the fragile omega-3 fatty acids, they may safely be heated up to 325 °F.

Of these three, sesame and olive are superior because they’re naturally rich in anti-oxidants giving them an excellent shelf life. This explains their venerable historical precedent. For millennia, Asians have enjoyed sesame oil while Mediterranean peoples used olive oil. Elsewhere, culinary fats were saturated and derived from animal fats or coconut or palm oil.

For the fun of it, you may wish to keep on hand one of the exotic unsaturated nut or seed oils such as hemp, macadamia, pumpkin or walnut oil. Use them only for salad dressings as, due to their omega-3 content, they cannot be safely heated.

Purchase unsaturated oils in small bottles, refrigerate and use within six months. Extra virgin olive oil is an exception. It has a longer shelf-life and doesn’t require refrigeration.

Avoid any oil, such as canola, corn or grape seed oil—that can only be produced by modern technology. Also, avoid oils lacking historical precedent as a fat supply such as cotton, peanut and soy oils each of which has somewhat toxic properties.

This article provides the basics you need to know regarding unsaturated cooking oils. See also Saturated Fats.

The accompanying recipe is for Stir Fried Bok Choy.

May you be well nourished,

Rebecca Wood