Fat: it does a body good.

I took a little hiatus from Project Real Food for awhile. Kids were really sick, vacations were gone on, houses were cleaned...you get the picture. Sometimes life gets in the way of our best intentions. But I'm back with a vengeance! Now that we've spilled the beans on the lipid hypothesis, I suppose we should talk about what good fats actually do for our bodies. Traditional fats are coconut oil, cod-liver oil, butter and ghee (clarified butter), egg yolks, olive oil, palm oil, meat fats and even tallow and lard. It's important that fats from animal sources come only from animals raised in a traditional way (catching a theme here?). This means grassfed cows and free range chickens. The best way to go about this is through local farms, though I'll talk about other sources I've used at one point or another a little later. Traditional fats mentioned above serve important functions in our bodies. Contrary to common belief, we need saturated fats and they are not, in fact, the enemy we should be avoiding. Saturated fats and the brain. They provide key nutrients that you need to maintain optimal health and an optimal weight. Sixty percent of our brains are made up of fat. When you eat saturated fats, you nourish your brain cells. When you don't eat enough saturated fats, the chemistry of your brain can be compromised. This is a big reason that so many pediatricians today stress the importance of whole milk and yogurt for young infants and toddlers. I say, why stop there? Our kids have always gotten whole milk, yogurt and cheese and always will. My husband and I only drink whole milk, yogurt and cheese, too. I may be carrying some baby weight, but all you have to do is look at my skinny hubby and my slender kiddos to know that eating and drinking lots of full fat, natural foods isn't going to make you fat. Making babies might, though. :) My husband has actually lost weight (or as he'll tell you, his little chunk of belly fat so that he now has a six pack that I secretly envy). And ironically, when I was pregnant with my first son, I drank skim milk and used almost entirely fat-free or light products. I gained forty pounds in that pregnancy. Right before getting pregnant with my second, I switched to full-fat products and swore off all the light and fat-free products and quit worrying about fat in my diet. I only gained 25 pounds in that pregnancy. This is obviously not a scientific experiment, but I do find it somewhat telling. If conventional wisdom held true, one would think that I should have gained quite a bit more when I switched my diet to full-fat food than when I was eating almost entirely fat-free food. Cellular integrity. Every cell membrane in your body is ideally made up of 50 percent saturated fat, so consuming saturated fats maintains cellular integrity in your body. If one eats too much polyunsaturated oil and not enough saturated fat, the cells won't function correctly. Less saturated fats, higher rates of osteoporosis. A study published in the 1996 American Oil Chemists Society Proceedings found that 50 percent of dietary fats should be saturated in order for calcium to be absorbed and used correctly in our bones. The authors of Eat Fat, Lose Fat say that one reason osteoporosis has become such a problem these days is the lack of fats like coconut oil and butter in our diets. Saturated fats and the liver. Saturated fats protect the liver from toxins like alcohol and medicine like Tylenol. As we have villified saturated fats and increased our consumption of polyunsaturated oil, liver problems have become more common. Saturated fats and the heart. Saturated fats provide energy to the heart in times of stress. There is a concentration of saturated fat in the tissues surrounding the heart and studies have shown that saturated fats are the heart's preferred food. Saturated fats and the lungs. Our lungs cannot properly function without saturated fat in our diets. The fatty acids in the lung surfactant are normally 100 percent saturated. When people consume large amounts of partially hydrogenated fats and vegetable oils, trans fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids are put into the phospholipids where the body needs saturated fatty acids, meaning our lungs can't work as effectively. Recent research suggests that consumption of trans fats and polyunsaturated oils contributes to the rising rates of asthma in children. Children who consume plenty of butterfat have much lower rates of asthma. Fat-soluble vitamins. Saturated fats are a great source of fat-soluble vitamins like A, D and K, which are deficient in the standard American diet (SAD). These vitamins play important roles, like hormone regulation, reproduction, immunity, bone health and more. The wrong kinds of fat actually inhibit the production of stress and sex hormones, creating problems with glucose balance, mineral metabolism and reproduction. I remember when I was pregnant with my first son and had joined a message board with other mothers expecting in the same month, the topic of switching to full-fat milk for reproductive purposes came up. I never really understood why studies were showing that women who drank full-fat milk were more likely to get and stay pregnant than women who drank 2 percent or whole until I began to study traditional fats. Now I completely understand it. Omega 3s and Omega 6s. Interestingly, we have hormones that act within our cells called prostaglandins. There are three major types: two are made from omega-6 fatty acids and one is made from omega-3 fatty acids. For the optimal production and balance of these prostaglandins, you need a good balance of omega-3s to omega-6s. Ideally, you shouldn't ever have more than two to three times more omega-6s than omega-3s. In the SAD, the ratio is close to 20 to 1. Most of this is due to the high consumption of vegetable oils. This is probably the single biggest reason I initially switched to grassfed beef, as well. Our doctor explained to us the important of consuming more omega-3s a few years ago, and urged me to get my children on an omega-3 supplement. As a result, I began to research this whole omega-3/omega-6 ratio and found the studies which showed that grassfed beef has higher levels of omega-3s than feedlot beef. The SAD is full of feedlot beef and vegetable oils, so it's no wonder that our ratios have become so incorrectly skewed. Just another reason that messing with the diet God gave us doesn't make sense. Trans fats interfere with the production of prostaglandins which can result in all sorts of imbalances that lead to inflammation, weight gain, allergies, asthma and even alcoholism and cancer. The authors of Eat Fat, Lose Fat say that in order to correct the imbalance of Omega 3s to Omega 6s, we should avoid all commercial vegetable oils and add coconut oil and traditional food sources of omega-3 fatty acids (these also include wild salmon, egg yolks from pastured chickens and flax oil in small amounts). What fats to eat, what ones to avoid: Eat: Coconut oil. Coconut is sort of the holy grail of fats. It's grown on about 12 million hectares spread over 86 countries. It's the most important nut crop in the world. No doubt you've heard plenty of "crunchy" people talking about coconuts or coconut oil. Lucky for me, I happen to think coconut is one of the greatest foods on earth, so when I first heard about the "miracle" of coconuts, I couldn't really have been happier. I put coconut in everything! I don't make chocolate chip cookies, I make coconut chocolate chip cookies. I don't make brownies, I make coconut brownies. I don't even use lotion, I just use coconut oil. It's even the base of our toothpaste and I make most of our smoothies with coconut milk and a little dollop of coconut oil. So...to say that I had a hard time adapting to this real food change would be a hilarious fib. It was the easiest real food change I ever made. Coconut contains medium-chain fatty acids. What this means, basically, is that while longer-chain fatty acids found in many foods need to be digested by bile salts (which are secreted by the gallbladder), coconut doesn't get digested this way. If you have trouble digesting fats (my mom, for example, who had her gallbladder removed, complains if she eats food that is too fatty), this is the best fat to introduce back into your diet. Coconut contains lauric acid, something also found in breastmilk. Moms who are breastfeeding are strongly encouraged to consume even more coconut oil than average. Lauric acid is a proven antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal agent. It protects your body against viruses and bacteria and it strengthens your immune system. Past the age of nursing, you can only get lauric acid in small amounts from butterfat and large amounts from coconut oil and palm kernel oil. It's a saturated fat, and the more healthy saturated fats you eat, the less essential fatty acids (omega-3s and omega-6s) you need, since saturated fats help your body use EFAs properly. Eggs and (gulp) liver. I'll be the first to admit that I stopped eating liver as soon as I knew what liver was. My mom fried liver when I was a kid, and I remember very distinctly that I loved it. And then I learned what it was and haven't eaten it since. Despite hearing all the claims about how good it can be for you, I still, to this day, avoid it like the plague. If you aren't so averse, give it a shot!