Sugar: Fructose Part 4/5. Fruits Are Not All That.

All of our lives, we've been repeatedly told that fruit is so healthy that we need to eat “5 a day.” It probably seems ridiculous to question whether or not fruit has any benefit, but bear with me, because the actual scientific evidence does not support this notion.

In observational studies, higher fruit and vegetable consumption is sometimes associated with better health, but in these studies there are so many other factors; higher fruit intake can be good if it is replacing processed trans-fat-laden junk foods. Higher fruit intake often correlates with higher economic status, which is itself commonly associated with better health.

However, the secret that they won't tell you is that in controlled trials, the only studies that can prove a cause and effect relationship, fruits have failed to live up to the hype. In intervention studies where subjects are instructed to eat more fruit without changing any other factors, there is no benefit observed to health markers or mortality.

You might be asking, “What about the antioxidants in fruit that everyone is always talking about?” A Polish study observed a group of cyclists that eliminated fruits and vegetables from the diet for 10 weeks. Compared to the control group, the no-fruit group actually experienced a decrease in oxidative damage. Somehow, by eliminating all the antioxidants in fruit and vegetables from the diet, they managed to suffer less oxidation!

Have you ever wondered why fruits have so many antioxidants? They don't make them for our benefit. Perhaps they are protecting themselves from something. Something that is highly oxidating... something highly oxidating that is found abundantly in modern fruits...

Am I the only one who guessed sugar? :)  Fruits have been bred to be very rich in sugar, much more than wild fruits were, so the plant must defend itself. Something similar happens in humans. Studies have failed to find that the antioxidants in fruit have an actual anti-oxidant effect in our bodies; instead, our body increases the production of the natural antioxidant uric acid in response to sugar. The problem with this is that too much uric acid leads to problems like gout, where uric acid crystallizes into little sharp needles in your joints and causes arthritis. This is a problem, because us humans, along with apes and dogs, are the only species lacking the enzyme uricase which breaks down uric acid.  

Another major study, the Women's Healthy Eating and Living study, took women who had survived breast cancer and put some of them on a diet that was supplemented with fruits, fruit juice and more vegetables. They followed these subjects for over 7 years. The conclusion, in their own words:

“Among survivors of early stage breast cancer, adoption of a diet that was very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber, and low in fat did not reduce additional breast cancer events or mortality during a 7.3-year follow up period.”

At least they had the integrity to be honest about their findings. It must have been hard to admit it. But could it be any more clear? All those extra servings of fruits and vegetables did nothing to protect those women from cancer or extend their lives by a statistically significant amount.

When you examine the evidence scientifically, fruits come out looking neutral at best, and possibly detrimental if eaten in significant amounts. In the end, for all of their supposed benefits, they're not enough to make up for the sugar. There is certainly no reason to go out of your way to eat more fruits or vegetables.

 Essential for health? Nope.  Any benefits at all?  Nope.  

In a Dutch study, a group which ate more vitamin c and more plant anti-oxidants, displayed no difference in their actual resistance to oxidation of LDL cholesterol, compared to the low anti-oxidant group. It looks on paper like it should make a difference, but in reality it didn't. In another study, out of different diets that were tested, the high sugar diet produced the greatest level of bacterial waste products, suggesting that infectious bacteria were thriving. This shows how sugar can make you sick, or at least stop you from getting better.

Less sugary fruits may be okay occasionally but don't fool yourself in to thinking that you need them or that they're protecting you.  All these miracle fruits come out every year like Acai berry, and Goji berry, and it makes my teeth cringe. You are not doing your body any good by drinking sugar drinks. 

“Plants are not essential, or magic” as Dr. Kurt Harris says. Don't believe the hype.    

Sugar: Fructose Part 3/5

A couple nights ago, I added a bit more information on oxidation and glycation in my previous post, which I neglected to explore in detail. Take another look at it. It is highlighted in light green just in case you missed it. (Thank you Mom!)

Today, we will be talking about sugars unique ability to promote cancer cell growth. In a recent study conducted by a team at UCLA, researchers found that although cancer cells will consume glucose to survive, fructose caused them to proliferate(multiply) at a much greater rate.

Dr. Anthony Heaney at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and team wrote "Fructose activates a key cellular pathway that drives cell division, promoting the growth of cancer cells" 

Cancer cell proliferation. 

Read the full article here. And another one here. 

This is pretty scary, considering sugar and high fructose corn syrup is consumed massively on a daily basis. By default, this is what our body deals with; fructose aside. 

On a daily basis, our bodies are dealing with minor stress from oxygen; but we are evolved to handle that, it's part of life. It's our natural wear and tear as animals. Our body fights off oxidative damage alone just by breathing. Fortunately, we have evolved mechanisms of homeostasis. Homeostasis is our bodies natural self regulation. Our bodies want to maintain equilibrium, and if left alone, it will more or less take care of itself. The body is an amazing thing in this way. If you don't disrupt the system and the balance, your body's natural tendency for homeostasis will keep things going smoothly. You have to really overwhelm the system in order to upset the balance and send your metabolism running off the rails. We evolved these mechanisms, but our body didn't foresee foods such a vegetable oils, wheat, high fructose corn syrup and excess amounts of sugar. They are disrupting our natural balance, and are too recent in our diet for us to evolve handling them.

Your body is also creating millions of cells everyday to replace the ones that are dying. There are bound to be errors with thousands of these cells; mistakes will be made. Cancer cells are formed everyday, but in a healthy body they are eliminated.

However, when there is too much fructose in your system, some of those cancer cells might be stimulated enough to survive and reproduce, potentially leading to life-threatening cancer.

Everyone's body is already dealing with the day to day damage, and that doesn't factor in genetics. Some bodies are more prone to defects then others. What did your mom eat before she conceived you, and what did she eat during her pregnancy? These things matter, and play a huge role in the way each and every one of us turned out. I can imagine the amount of damage mothers do to their kids during the 9 months. It makes me wonder about stillbirth. Studies have found the amount of oxidative stress in the mothers body both during pregnancy and during breast feeding, can contribute to chromosomal damage and defects in the child. This needs to be studied more, but you can't deny that there could be a connection. Stillbirth causes: birth defects, chromosomal abnormalities, poor fetal growth, placental problems, diabetes, and high blood pressure in the mother, can all be explained by the modern diet.

DNA is like your body's blueprint, that tells your cells how to form and what to do; when your DNA chromosomes are damaged, cells aren't going to form properly and aren't going to work right. What do we know that causes DNA damage? Oxidation and glycation. If you've been reading this blog, you know that vegetable oils and sugar are the major dietary causes of oxidative stress and glycation.

It is very depressing to think about the amount of damage that a baby can suffer during its formative stages as a direct result of the mother's diet. It is possible that many defects that are blamed on genetics could be avoided by a better, less oxidative diet.

Your child's health is influenced by choices that you make starting even before pregnancy and continuing during the entire term, and during breast-feeding. Don't wait until the child is born to start thinking about his health. Please for his/her sake eat right, and also breast feed your child. Don't listen to anyone who tells you that its not the healthiest food for your baby, or that it doesn't matter if you use formula, because IT DOES. Some studies have found that the majority who die from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) were formula fed, and babies that were breast fed were less likely to die from SIDS. Breast milk is specially formulated by evolution to be the perfect food for your baby. Breast milk is a source of loric acid, a saturated fat which in the body metabolizes into monolaurin which is a natural antibiotic/ anti-viral, which is great for your immune system. If you don't breast feed, your baby is missing out on the protective benefit of monolaurin, and every other benefit from breast milk.

Have you ever checked out the ingredients for Similac baby formula?

 42.6% Corn Syrup Solids, Soy protein, Safflower oil, Sugar (sucrose), and Soy oil as their top ingredients. 

This is very sad.  Where's the nutrition? How can anyone feed their child that sad excuse for nourishment? All that corn syrup, sugar, and vegetable oils, really? Dr. Robert H. Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, came out with the video “Sugar the Bitter Truth” link here --(youtube.com) .  He talks about the obesity epidemic with fructose and the damaging effects baby formula is having on infants. As Dr. Lustig puts it, Similac is a 'Baby Milkshake.' 

In my next post, I will get to the other topics I promised to write about in my previous post. This post was much longer than anticipated.   Take care.

Sugar: Fructose Part 2/5

-Sorry for taking so long with my updates; work and free time have been tight lately. I will try my best to update at least once a week, but we'll see. I will do my best. Please keep checking back for more posts! 

In my last post, I explained how triglycerides were formed. It is important to keep your triglycerides low. High triglycerides (Hypertriglyceridemia) are one of the strongest predictors of heart disease. High levels of triglycerides in the blood are believed to cause atherosclerosis, the build-up of plaque on artery walls.

Your goal should be to keep your triglyceride under 100. When you get a blood test, its crucial you ask your doctor what your triglyceride count is, your HDL, and your LDL. Your doctor will probably make a big deal out of your total cholesterol, but that is because he/she went to school in the 70s, living through the whole "saturated fat/cholesterol is bad" phase. Pay no attention to his/her ignorance. Nowadays we know that total cholesterol is not very meaningful. Triglycerides are what really show what's going on.

A low triglyceride count indicates that your LDL cholesterol is most likely the large, fluffy, harmless type, whereas when triglycerides are very high, you almost certainly have the dangerous small, dense LDL. Additionally, you should aim to have a ratio of triglycerides to HDL that is less than 2 to 1. For example, HDL: 60, Triglycerides: 120,  that is pretty easy to do with the diet that I recommend, and you can do a lot better than that easily if you stick to it. You can easily have HDL that is even higher than your triglycerides. 80 HDL is great, and 100 is even better. Low fat diets fail to protect you from heart disease. On a low fat diet, your HDL is less than 40, and that's a danger zone. You want to keep it over 60 at the very least.

Although it is a bit more complicated, it may be helpful for you to think of it like this: Eating lots of sugar or too many carbs leads to high triglycerides, and eating plenty of saturated fat is a good way to raise HDL. So a diet that is higher in saturated fat and lower in sugar and carbs will tend to promote the healthiest heart. 

Another issue I'd like to talk about is sugar causing high levels of oxidation/glycation in the body. Oxygen is a highly reactive element; when oxygen reacts with another material it is called oxidation, and it produces molecules that are called oxygen free-radicals. These free radicals are unstable molecules that will react with other molecules, causing cellular damage and possibly even DNA damage and mutation. When metal rusts, or when a cut apple turns brown, that's an example of oxygen reacting with it. When oxidation reactions happen in the human body, it's called aging.


Glycation is when a glucose or fructose molecule binds to a protein or fat; picture sugar turning into caramel in your bloodstream. It's sticky and gunky and easily binds to receptors, proteins, and the walls of your arteries. It's very harmful and has a number of damaging effects, including cellular damage. Glycation and oxidation  both lead to the formation of AGEs (Advanced Glycation End-products), which are believed to contribute to cancer, degeneration, and accelerated aging. According to recent studies, fructose causes glycation and oxidation at 10 times the rate of glucose, so you can see why it is important to limit sugar intake. Starches, which are made of glucose polymers, cause much less damage and stress. The average American consumes 150 pounds of sugar a year, which is about 200 grams of sugar a day.

 Look at the bag of sugar in the picture of my previous post. The average American eats 30 bags of those a year. 30 bags! Your body wasn't made to handle that much sugar! And its certainly taking its toll on people. Vegetable oils (like I've mentioned in a previous post) are vulnerable to lipid peroxidation and cause even worse oxidative stress than fructose does. Virtually all processed foods are made of some combination of sugar and vegetable oils and usually wheat as well. Walk around the middle aisles at a supermarket sometime and try to find something that doesn't have sugar or vegetable oils in it. It's difficult. 

In my next post I will talk about sugars unique ability to promote cancer cell growth, sugar alternatives, the problem with fruit, and sugar causing uric acid which lead to gout.

Sugar: Fructose Part 1/5

As a forewarning, this is going to be a very long multi-part series of posts. Sugar is very problematic and can not be explained in just one entry. In short, here are some of the issues I will be discussing about sugar:

-Sugar promotes fatty liver disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

-Sugar directly causes elevated triglycerides, which are a major contributor to heart disease.

-Sugar causes high levels of oxidation/glycation.

-Sugar has a unique ability to promote cancer cell growth.
-Sugar in fruits and why fruits are not as healthy as you think.

-Sugar causes elevated uric acid levels which lead to gout.

-Sugar alternatives

Over the course of the following posts I will discuss each of these issues individually.

Let's start with explaining what sugar is and why it is different than other carbohydrates. Although technically all simple carbohydrates are sugars, when I talk about sugar, I'm referring to the monosaccharride Fructose and molecules that contain it, such as sucrose which is a disaccharide made up of glucose and fructose. Sucrose is the common white sugar that everybody knows and loves.

Unlike other carbohydrates, fructose follows a different metabolic pathway in the body. Fructose is metabolized by the liver only. When you eat fructose, the liver stops everything and just works on processing this fructose. Over time, too much of this causes cirrhosis and fatty liver disease that looks remarkably similar to the effects of alcoholism.

In your liver, fructose is initially converted into glycogen, which is your bodies preferred way of storing carbohydrates. But, the liver can only hold a certain amount, usually around 100 grams or so. Once the liver is full it has to start making fructose into triglycerides and palmitic acid, which is a fat that will eventually be stored in the body. Some of these lipids (palmitic acid and triglycerides) are stored in the liver which is what makes it fat; hence, fatty liver disease. This condition, causes the liver to become insulin resistant because it can't hold anymore glucose. In fact, it starts leaking out glucose into your blood. Once this happens, your pancreas has to produce more insulin to prevent your blood sugar from getting too high and now you have chronically elevated insulin and you're on the road to type 2 diabetes. Vegetable oils also play a major role in this process, and there's some evidence that healthy saturated fat can help prevent this. Which I will talk about in a later post.

The long term effects of too much sugar

All of this, is your plane ticket to metabolic syndrome; a collection of related health problems that includes diabetes, obesity and ultimately heart disease. I want you to really look at the Standard American Diet. (S.A.D.) <----The acronym says it all. Sugar is in everything. Soda, the normal latte coffee every morning, cake, ice cream, TV dinners and pre-made foods, breakfast cereals, fast food, pastries, candy bars, those small packages of nerds, gummie bears and skittles people pop in their mouth like nothing, and even the supposed healthy foods, like fruit smoothies and yogurt. A large Jamba juice can have over 100 grams of sugar. How much did I say the liver can hold again? 100? Talk about a massive overload of sugar. The juice alone is enough as it is, and that's just one smoothie. I highly doubt that would be the only sugar you ate that day. And by the way, if you think the antioxidants in fruits are going to help you, think again. More about this in a later entry.

Try going without sugar for a week, and you'll start to realize how hard it is to avoid. And actually read the ingredients on everything, don't just assume it doesn't have sugar; the food industry loves to hide sugar in everything to make it taste better. It's insane how much sugar you can eat in a day without even realizing it.

I'm sick of hearing “Low carb is bad” ...Are you kidding me? You have no idea how important a low carb diet is for real health, not just weight loss. That's just what happens when you stop sabotaging your body and give it a chance to repair itself for once. An improvement in body composition is an indirect effect of your body finally working as intended. Low carb diets are not a gimmick or a crash diet. It's the way we were meant to eat to be healthy, and the way we did eat for hundreds of thousands of years.    

The Do's and Don'ts for Wheat-free Gluten-free Alternatives

It might seem like eliminating wheat means giving up everything you love. That may be true, depending on how addicted you are to french bread :) But for many things, there are alternatives that will satisfy those cravings. You shouldn't rely on these foods to be your main meal; they're healthier than wheat, but they're still not ideal. But It might help you stick to a gluten free diet, however, if you know that there's alternatives out there for special occasions.

White rice noodles are traditional for some Asian foods, but they also make great macaroni and cheese, casseroles, fettuccine Alfredo, and virtually anything you could make with pasta. Shirataki noodles is also a great alternative. They go by other names such as "Konnyaku" or "Yam" noodles.  They are like 97% water and the rest is fiber. They are low carb, have barely any calories and are great for stir fries and soups.  Please make sure the ones you buy do not have tofu in them; a lot of them do. 

As far as flour goes, rice flour mixed with other starches (potato starch, tapioca starch, corn starch) can replace wheat flour in most foods but not everything. There's no way to make french bread without gluten, but you can still make great pancakes, cookies, waffles, cakes, muffins and rice flour tortillas. Coconut flour is also an option. You can't substitute it directly for wheat flour, because it behaves much differently, but it is possible to use coconut flour to make cakes and other baked goods.

 Many natural food stores carry a selection of pre-made gluten free products. Although I do not recommend making these foods a big part of your diet, they can be a nice treat every now and then for those of you who are not diabetic. Unfortunately for those who are already diabetic, it is best to avoid such things completely until your metabolism repairs itself.

As you can see, I didn't mention many alternatives. Rice flour and white rice noodles, shirataki noodles, coconut flour, and various other vegetable starches pretty much cover the grounds. Although there are more alternatives, such as flours made from beans, soybeans and other non-gluten grains, ie. millet and sorghum, I would not recommend eating them. 

Reasons to Avoid these Alternatives

Beans: I feel like such a traitor for saying this, considering I was raised off beans my whole life. Deep down I want to believe beans aren't bad, or that there's something redeeming about them; some reason to justify eating them at all, but there's none. The truth is, beans are horrible. The so called high fiber, and complex carbohydrates that people are always raving about, is just a reflection of the fact that you can barely digest beans at all. Everyone knows beans have a reputation for giving you gas, but why is that? It's because they're practically indigestible. They're getting fermented (eaten by bacteria) in your lower intestine. That means they're not being broken down by your digestion at all. And these so called vitamins and minerals are not likely to be absorbed very well, due to all the lectins and phytic acid (anti-nutrients) sucking them up, making them completely unusable by your body.

And then there's the protein. The protein is not only incomplete, it's very low in bio-availability. That means, how usable that protein is by your body. Your body probably absorbs less than 50% of it. Big surprise people! Protein from animal products is exactly what your body wants, because after all, we are animals. Are you a bean? Or are you an animal? I owe a lot to beans through my life, but the truth is, that they are a 3^rd world country food, with no redeeming quality other than being very cheap and storing well in your pantry. Watch out for garbanzo, fava and soybean flours in gluten free products. And more so soybean flours. On top of the problems that all beans share, soybeans have unique goitrogenic properties. The phytoestrogens in soybeans can suppress thyroid function and cause other problems as well. Please, stay clear of these flours and beans. They do more harm then good.

Millet: Millet is one of the most eaten foods in the whole world. It's a staple food in much of Africa and parts of Asia, and is used in a variety of gluten free products. Other than the lectins (antri-nutrients) in them, millet is very goitrogenic. It blocks up iodine to your thyroid and causes goiter. Countries such as Japan, have high thyroid problems, due to all the soy products. These foods must be avoided in order to be healthy. You do not want this. 

Brown Rice: It's kind of funny how brown rice is advertised as a healthy food alternative. People say the bran of the rice is where all the good stuff is; well it's also where all the bad stuff is. This also includes lectins and phytic acid, which is the reason you aren't getting the benefit of the vitamins. When choosing gluten free alternatives, please stay away from brown rice flour and noodles. They will only leach the minerals from your body. Stick to white rice; white rice is neutral. Not bad , but not extremely beneficial either.

Reminder: ALWAYS CHECK THE INGREDIENTS! Some gluten free products sneak vegetable oils in them, so BE CAREFUL! :)  

Good Fats/ Bad Fats

Before I do this section, I want to talk briefly about Omega-6 and Omega-3 fats. As we both know, Omega-6 and Omega-3's are essential fatty acids, that we need in order to survive. They are important precursors that affect a ton of things in our body, and it's important to have a balance of them, in order to maintain healthy function and flow in our bodies. In the typical American diet, there is wayyy too much Omega-6 and very little Omega 3. An imbalance of too much Omega-6 can contribute to inflammation, lipid peroxidation and heart disease, due to Omega-6's ability to promote blood clotting.

So it's important to choose fats that A: have a balance ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 and B: To have a low percentage of polyunsaturated fat percentage in general. For reasons that are too complicated to explain right here, it's better to balance them at a low level than to balance them at a high level. You're better off having less of both. To know more, visit http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search?q=eicosanoid    He goes into great detail and has a great series. Scroll down to Eicosanoids and Ischemic Heart Disease. Infact, read all his blogs. He explains things really well. 

The Best Fats to Eat! Saturated fat!

#1 Butter/Cream: Butter has an almost perfect balance of Omega-6 to Omega-3 Ratio and also is a good source of vitamins including some that are rare, such as vitamin K-2. Butter is also a good source of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) which is believed to have anti-cancer properties and other benefits. Please note that, butter from cows that are allowed to graze on fresh grass has more of everything I've mentioned. So it's best to get that if you can. Always aim for grass fed dairy products.

#2 Ruminant Fat: That includes, Beef, Lamb, Bison and probably any other 4 legged animal that eats grass. These in particular have a good balance of omega-6 to omega-3, as well as a very low total amount of polyunsaturated fat. They also contain CLA, and possibly other biologically valuable compounds. Similarly to dairy, animal fat contains more nutrients when it comes from grass fed animals. So again, aim for free ranged, grass fed animals as much as possible.

#3 Egg Yolk: The fats in egg yolks are amazing. Provided that the eggs come from chickens that get to run around outdoors in the grass to eat whatever they can find. Chickens are not vegetarians, and they shouldn't be fed like one. Also, don't be fooled by labels that say free ranged, cage free or organic. These are mostly marketing gimmicks. None of these things mean that the eggs are healthier. Look into the farm the eggs are coming from to really find out. If you can't afford real pastured chicken eggs, at least get the kind that are fortified with omega-3. These eggs have a good balance of essential fats, and a ton of important fat soluble nutrients.

#4 Coconut: In general you will want to avoid any plant fats, because they are typically inferior. However, coconut oil has a number of advantages. It is highly saturated and very low in polyunsaturated fats; it contains lauric acid, which is a fatty acid also found in breast milk which is believed to strengthen the immune system; it contains medium-chain triglycerides that pretty much turn into energy right away and don't get stored as fat; there are so many good things about coconut oil that several authors have written entire books about it. Coconut oil is a great alternative.

#5 Lard/Duck Fat: Lard coming from Pigs and ducks do not have the greatest ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 as compared to larger ruminants such as cows, but it's still vastly better than most fats out there. They have a pretty good saturated/monounsaturated fat ratio. Their fatty acid composition is very similar to olive oil. I wouldn't make it my main fat everyday, but you shouldn't stress about it either. If lard is the worst fat in your diet, then you're doing great. I would also like to mention chicken fat in this section. I do not recommend eating much chicken fat at all. Chicken has a lot of omega-6, so I'd try to avoid it as much as possible. Unless it's from chickens that really spend their time in grassy pastures, but that's going to be really expensive. I'd avoid it, except on a special occasion.  

#6 Palm kernel oil: Palm kernel oil is similar to coconut oil. It has great saturated fat content, low polyunsaturates and a lot of benefits. Do keep in mind, Palm oil is different then Palm kernel oil. Palm oil, the red one in particular is a good source of vitamin E, and is mostly saturated fat, but not as good as Palm kernel oil. I would not make this my primary fat, but it is still a good alternative.

Bad fats to avoid completely. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Soybean oil

Corn oil

Cottonseed oil

Sunflower oil

safflower oil

rapeseed/Canola oil

peanut oil
Trans Fat/Partially Hydrogenated Oils

These oils are the ones you will see in 99% of food items. They are not food, do not eat them under any circumstances if you want to be healthy. If you buy any prepared foods, be sure to read the labels and don't ever just assume it's okay to eat.  It would be wise to get into the habit of checking the ingredients in foods before you buy them.  Your health is important, don't be fooled by things that say “All Natural” or even things that are “100% Organic”. There's even such a thing as organic soybean oil, and that's still bad. DO NOT buy into the marketing to make yourself feel better. Take a second to read the actual ingredients, your health depends on it.  

One last thing I would like to mention about these 2 oils specifically.

Olive oil- It's highly over-rated. Saturated fat is always going to be better. But if you love the taste of olive oil, I would recommend to only use it for flavor. Olive oil is mostly monounsaturated fat, so frying with it is not a good idea. It also has more omega-6, so unless you're using it for flavor, I wouldn't bother with it. 

Canola oil – Canola oil is often recommended by nutritionists because it is high in monounsaturated fat, like olive oil, and also contains a good ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fat, at first glance. However, in reality, canola oil is so processed and refined that virtually all of its high polyunsaturated fat content will be oxidized or transformed into evil trans-fat before it even gets to the store! The seemingly good amount of Omega-3 is misleading because you'll never get the benefit of any of it. All you will get is a bunch of nasty, unstable oxidized lipids. Stay away from canola oil and eat real food, instead.


Extra Extra!!

Me and my husband were walking through PCC Market, and we stumbled across their news letter. On the front page, it read "The truth about fats."  I can honestly say, I didn't pay much attention to it; I just kept on walking. At this point, I'm sick of reading false information the media tells everyone.  But my husband grabbed it, skimmed through it, smiled at me and said "They actually got it right this time"  So I grabbed the paper, read it and was so excited to finally read something backing up what I've been saying for so long.  And the fact that it was by an actual nutritionist made me even more excited; most nutritionists you see say the same thing, "Saturated fat is bad." I've lost all hope in them until I read this article. I'm pleased to say I found it online for you all to read.  It was written by Cherie Calbom, who has a masters in nutritional science.  &lt;3!!! http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/1010/sc1010-fats.html

Vegetable Oils: Bad Fats

Vegetable oils are widely promoted as a healthful substitute for “Artery clogging saturated fat,” but in reality, vegetable oils are one of the worst things you can possibly eat. I wont even call them a food, they're more of an industrial product that is only technically edible.

The problem with vegetable oils is they're unstable. In fact, most of the vegetable oils displayed on the shelf are rancid before you even buy them. Vegetable oils are mainly polyunsaturated fats, which means they have 2 or more bonds that are not saturated with hydrogen. This leaves them especially vulnerable to oxidation, when free oxygen molecules bind with them causing damage. This is also called lipid peroxidation. Lipid peroxidation is the number one cause of the production of Advanced Glycation Endproducts, which are believed to cause aging, aging-related deterioration, and cancer.

One of the important functions of antioxidant-vitamins E and C is to help prevent the oxidation caused by unstable polyunsaturated fats. The more polyunsaturated fat you eat, the more of these vitamins you need in order to be healthy. Lots of people eat diets that are high in vegetable oils but lacking in vitamins, so what you end up with is depleted, low levels of vitamins E and C.   This will leave you vulnerable to further damage from oxidation and chronic systemic inflammation. (When cells throughout your whole body are constantly stressed).  You may even accelerate the aging of the skin by using them as a lotion.  And most lotions do use vegetable oils in their products.

Saturated fat on the other hand is stable and contains no unsaturated bonds. Leaving it immune to oxidation, and therefore relatively harmless. Which type of fat would you want to have in your body? The fats you eat are a structural material, that are used in every tissue of your body in every cell. Do you really want to be made of rancid vegetable oil?

Have you ever seriously looked at a soybean or a kernel of corn? Where does the oil come from to make those massive jugs of soybean and corn oil at the supermarket? They're chemically extracted by industrial solvents. You could not possibly eat any significant amount of these oils without heavy industrial processing. How can that be healthier for us, then animal fat or butter? How would natural selection favor that? We didn't survive over millions of years, to be intolerant of saturated fat. If that were the case, we wouldn't be here today.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, sure, this all sounds reasonable, but how come so many people have been saying saturated fat is unhealthy for so long? Simple answer is, vegetarian propaganda. Vegetarianism has become fashionable in the last few decades with misguided people who think they know everything.

Fifty years ago, researchers began to speculate that saturated fat was the cause of the “diseases of civilization.” And because saturated fat is found most commonly in animal products, the vegetarian agenda was quick to jump on the anti-saturated-fat bandwagon, and ever since then, researchers have been grasping at straws to support this hypothesis. It was formally adopted by the government not because there was any evidence for it, but because somebody wanted to make a name for himself, and instead of looking at the facts, they just went with the fashionable new theory at the time and based policy on it.

Everyone is replacing healthy butter and animal fat with these industrial oils now, and for no scientific reason. Vegetable oils are in everything; from prepared foods, to virtually every restaurant. The only way to avoid them is to prepare all of your own food from scratch, using whole food ingredients. I urge you strongly to replace everything you have now, with real butter and animal fat. In my next post, I will give you more alternatives to vegetable oils, and the reasons why they are more beneficial.

The Paleolithic Principle

The core principle for a true understanding of health is called the paleolithic principle. Humans have been around in more or less the same form for millions of years. Biologically speaking, we are pretty much the same animals that we were two or three million years ago. The paleolithic principle of nutrition is the notion that, by studying the history of human evolutionary biology, we can learn what the ideal foods are for humans.

The invention of agriculture, and with it the dawn of modern civilization, occurred about 10,000 years ago, a length of time that constitutes a tiny blip on the human time-line. The industrial revolution occurred even more recently, a mere couple of centuries ago. Yet our typical diet has changed radically in this time, and is now full of “foods” that would have been unrecognizable as such during the first several million years of our existence.

Evolution takes a lot of time; much more than 10,000 years. So it follows that we have not had time to properly adapt to these new foods. As hunter-gatherers, we relied heavily on meat, including fish, poultry, wild pigs, and especially large ruminants such as the ancestors of modern cows, sheep, and bison. Does it make any sense that humans would have evolved so that saturated fat is harmful to our health, when it was the only type of fat in our diet for millions of years? Natural selection does not work like that.  

The Big Bang

Disclaimer: I chose the name The Reverse Vegan because it expresses the philosophy of my diet.  However, I am not a strict reverse vegan; I include some plant based foods for flavor and variety.  But make no mistake: when I'm broke, and have to make sacrifices, plants are the first thing to go.

I'm going to start by saying, that most of what people think they know about nutrition is wrong. The conventional wisdom about nutrition is based on ideas that are 50 years old, and were not supported by science 50 years ago, let alone today. It may surprise you to learn that, despite what you've heard in the media and school health class for years, there's actually no scientific evidence that supports any link between saturated fat and heart disease, or any other illness. Most of the studies that claim to show that saturated fat is harmful, they're really only claiming correlation, which is close to meaningless.

There's a close correlation between my age and the price of gas, both gone up steadily my whole life, but that doesn't mean they have a single thing to do with each other.

In order to be scientifically meaningful, a study should establish a causal relationship. And how many studies have ever found a causal relationship between saturated fat and any health problem, with all other factors being equal? Not a single one.

The story of how saturated fat came to be the villain of modern nutrition is a long one, but the important thing to know is that it has more to do with politics than it does with science. For the whole story, check out Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.

Due to the villainization of saturated fat, people have been forced to find alternatives, which has been the real problem. I'm going to explain why saturated fat is the ideal food for humans and also why its alternatives including grains, and vegetable oils are the real culprits.

I will also be talking about the dangers of sugar, and many other foods I feel are not optimal.