What If Saturated Fats Are Essential?

[Storm]

Storm,

1. Every cell in your body is coated with a cell membrane made up of fat.

2. There are essential fats which the body needs and cannot live without.  You have to have them every day.   I would not recommend it, but one can live on a no/ultra low carb diet i.e. there are no essential carbohydrates (or close to it).

3. The web site is "engine2diet" i.e. the vegetarian/ultra low fat people.  A. these people ignore the established benefits of olive oil/omega 3 fatty acids/nuts/perhaps coconut oil should go here as well. B. These people are either clueless, or ignore the problems associated with eating shit loads of carbs (even good carbs) at one sitting e.g. their recipie for oatmeal.

As you may gather from my believing the TCM (traditional chinese medicine) diet approach, diet needs to be individualized, I do not think there is a one size fits all optimal approach that will  work for most people.  I will say that the ultra low fat approach is by itself silly (see 3A) and (if you are following the engine2diet vegetarian approach) problematic as there are a number of people who no matter what their wishes, their body would be better off eating some kind of animal protein.

Thanks Benko.  As I said it was just a Facebook post by a friend of mine and I've never heard of engine2diet before.  Personally I've had best results on the low GI diet, however, I also follow TCM to some extent (although I enjoy the occasional burger or American food as well).

[Gumby]

First of all, Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble, which means they can only be digested, absorbed, and transported in conjunction with fats. In other words, you're far more likely to absorb vitamins from plants if they are eaten in the presence of natural fats. As ridiculous as that may sounds to us, consider that eating vegetables with butter and/or cream allows your body to absorb more of the bioavailable fat-soluble vitamins.

Animals also store their fat-soluble vitamins in their own fat. Dairy is a liquified transfer of fat-soluble vitamins (and other nutrients) from mother to infant. "Low fat" milk is missing natural vitamins, which is why the dairy industry must dump tons of vitamins into highly-processed low fat milk. To suggest that "fat" is empty is simply playing on people's irrational fears of fat. Eating natural animal fat has never been proven to be harmful, and people have survived off of fat-derived nutrients for thousands of years.

Dr. John McDougall (cited in that link) promotes a vegetarian diet — something that relatively very few cultures have used for nourishment over the course of human history. The only vegetarian cultures that were ever able to avoid malnutrition were ones that accidentally ate the bugs, dirt and larvae on the unwashed leaves of their meals. When those individuals moved to civilized cities, they soon became malnourished when their plant-based food was cleaned before eating. This is why all modern vegetarians require modern supplementation — much of those supplements are typically synthetic and aren't properly absorbed by the body. Children in particular require lots of fat to grow and develop. Vegetarian children especially don't get the fat and nutrition they need to grow properly.

For the most part, vegetarians tend to be undernourished because most people's stomachs are incapable of deriving much of the nutrition from plants. The human stomach most closely resembles that of a dog — which is overwhelmingly carnivorous. Whereas most ruminants (such as cows and deer) have four stomachs, don't produce hydrochloric acid and have very long intestines compared to humans.

A ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal's first compartment of the stomach, principally through bacterial actions, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. The process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called "ruminating".
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant

So, any theory that humans can unlock all of the nutrients that raw plants contain is false. To unlock those nutrients, one needs to pre-digest all of those plants — typically with lacto-fermentation or at least partially by using an acidic medium, such as oil/vinegar, to help absorb some of the nutrients in plants. Few vegetarians seem to fully understand this. Most people think you can just eat plants and be nourished, but that isn't really so for most humans. Dr. John McDougall claims that people really don't need all that much fat-derived nourishment, and can easily find it with basic supplementation. Perhaps that's true from a survival standpoint, but anyone who eats a serving of liver or heart (or liverwurst) more than once or twice a week would find themselves with much more nourishment than any plant could produce — even if you could absorb all of the nutrients that plants have to offer. Perhaps this is why some primitive cultures resorted to cannibalism. Supposedly cannibals thrived on the energy provided from the human organ meats in their diet and often targeted the organs of fishermen, who had far more nourishment in their bodies than other people.

But, it's not surprising that many people see an improvement in their health after switching to vegetarianism. Transitioning from a Standard American Diet to just about anything will yield an improvement. You could probably switch from a Standard American Diet to a high quality dog food and also see an improvement in your health.

As for the post about oils... it's true that most modern cooking oils are terrible for you. Most refined oils have gone through a high-heat refining process that causes all sorts of free radicals to be created even before you buy them. They are basically toxic oils in a bottle. In reality, most oils are rancid by the time they are bottled and have been deodorized by their manufacturer to mask the horrendous stink that would otherwise be apparent from the refining process.

Some people believe that unrefined vegetable oils are ok, but the second you heat an unrefined vegetable oil, it starts to release harmful toxins. Olive oil may be ok on salads, but it will release some toxins when you cook with it at higher temperatures — though it's still way better than a refined vegetable oil. So, the post about oils is generally correct in that most oils in a bottle are pretty bad for you.

However, natural animal fat is the least toxic way to cook. Here's a brief, and oversimplified, explanation as to why it's better to cook with lard than oil:

http://youtu.be/6yJan2RZ9d8

If you're going to eat French Fries, once in awhile, it's best to cook them in Beef Tallow than a modern oil. Lard, tallow and butter have been demonized by the edible oil industry/lobby, but they are clearly healthier to cook with from a stability standpoint, and natural animal fats are essential for absorbing Vitamins A, D, E and K.

[Storm]

Very interesting stuff, Gumby.  I think you've scared me from cooking with oils now.  I usually try to use something like sunflower oil to fry vegetables and meats with because of it's ability to handle high temperatures.

Recently, I heard that macadamia oil is very prized because of it's ability to maintain stability at high temperatures, while having similar health benefits like olive oil.  The only thing keeping me from buying it is the price - I think it was something like $10 for a small container at whole foods.  Any input on macadamia oil?

[Gumby]

Very interesting stuff, Gumby.  I think you've scared me from cooking with oils now.  I usually try to use something like sunflower oil to fry vegetables and meats with because of it's ability to handle high temperatures.

Recently, I heard that macadamia oil is very prized because of it's ability to maintain stability at high temperatures, while having similar health benefits like olive oil.  The only thing keeping me from buying it is the price - I think it was something like $10 for a small container at whole foods.  Any input on macadamia oil?

Monounsaturated fats, such as Macadamia oils are ok. Not great, but much better than polyunsaturated oils. The fact that monounsaturated fats are still liquid at room temperature (though not in the refrigerator) shows that they are still relatively unstable. Like polyunsaturated oils, Monounsaturated oils can be easily damaged and oxidized while cooking.

The best cooking oil is saturated fat — it's the most stable. A natural (non-hydrogenated) virgin Coconut Oil — which is a very pure form saturated fat — is a fantastic cooking oil. Here's why...

http://youtu.be/ug4CTLf3XSg

I actually hate the taste of coconut, but you really don't taste it when you use it as a cooking oil. If anything, it probably enhances the flavor since it stays so stable during the cooking process.

I've also discovered that the increased stability of saturated fat makes it a lot easier to clean up a frying pan.

[Storm]

I think I've got it.  So as a general rule, if the oil is solid at room temperature, it is stable and won't break down (as much) into free radicals under cooking temperatures?  I guess coconut oil might be a good substitute.

Maybe I should just go back to cooking with butter - the taste is much better as well.

[Gumby]

I think I've got it.  So as a general rule, if the oil is solid at room temperature, it is stable and won't break down (as much) into free radicals under cooking temperatures?

Generally, yes. But, hydrogenated oils — which are manmade and tend to be solid at room temperature — are really bad for you. So, that rule of thumb only applies to natural fats/oils.

It's worth mentioning that many solid natural fats, such as lard (pig fat), are actually a combination of natural saturated/monounsaturated/polyunsaturated fats. Because of its more mixed composition, Lard is more suited to baking and pastries than high heat cooking. Beef fat (suet) has much more saturated fat, and is very good for frying. And Coconut oil is almost entirely saturated fat, so it does very well with frying and high heat.

The reason has to do with the shapes of the molecules. Saturated fat molecules are long and straight (which means they pack together very easily, like a pack of pencils, to form a solid at room temperature) and the straight molecules are less likely to break apart when heated.

But, an oil that is liquid at room temperature is composed of more complex molecules — with twists and turns that actually prevent the molecules from getting too close to each other (like a bag of toy Jacks), thus keeping it more liquid. When heat is applied, bits and pieces of those more complex and twisty molecules break off and become free radicals in your body. Most refined oils have already been heated before you buy them, so the free-radicals are already present.

Maybe I should just go back to cooking with butter - the taste is much better as well.

Butter is excellent for low-heat cooking (such as a scrambled egg, or as an off-heat add in), but you should never use butter for frying or high heat cooking. However Ghee is just butter with the burnable milk solids removed — so it has a much higher smoke point and can withstand high heat cooking very well. Again, just make sure that it's NOT a hydrogenated ghee — which would be really bad for you.

[Storm]

Oh yeah, we have to put the disclaimer that hydrogenated oils like Crisco shortening are terrible.  Unfortunately as a child growing up in the 70s we used to eat fried food cooked in that all the time...   

[FarmerD]

I would not recommend it, but one can live on a no/ultra low carb diet i.e. there are no essential carbohydrates (or close to it).

Just curious about your concerns about the low carb diet.  I try to follow the Richard Bernstein diet which limits carbs to about 30 grams per day.  I do eat a lot of green vegetables (broccoli, spinach, green beans, celery, brussel sprouts, etc) every day but avoid grain products, anything with sugar including most fruits, and high carb vegetables like potatoes and beans.  I occasionally eat some berries, tomatoes, avocado.

http://www.diabetes-book.com/

What potential issues do you see with this diet. 

[Gumby]

Oh yeah, we have to put the disclaimer that hydrogenated oils like Crisco shortening are terrible.  Unfortunately as a child growing up in the 70s we used to eat fried food cooked in that all the time...   

Yeah. Unfortunately, we all have been exposed to some very nasty stuff. However, exposure to toxins is nothing new for humans. Even hundreds of years ago, our ancestors had wood fireplaces burning constantly in their homes. This exposed them to all sorts of harmful airborne toxins on a regular basis. Luckily, the human body is usually pretty good at shedding toxins. Problems generally arise when those toxins surpass an individual's threshold over time.

[MachineGhost]

Very interesting stuff, Gumby.  I think you've scared me from cooking with oils now.  I usually try to use something like sunflower oil to fry vegetables and meats with because of it's ability to handle high temperatures.

Recently, I heard that macadamia oil is very prized because of it's ability to maintain stability at high temperatures, while having similar health benefits like olive oil.  The only thing keeping me from buying it is the price - I think it was something like $10 for a small container at whole foods.  Any input on macadamia oil?

Even though I now know Gumby doesn't like "conspiratorical" scientific evidence vs nourishing traditions  , evidence does show that refined Omega-6 oils are linked to cancer.  It's a batshit insane oil to be using for heating or cooking, nevermind deep frying.  That includes canola which still has too much Omega-6 in it.  Oils don't have to be esterified into trans-fats for their Omega-6/Omega-3 content to turn harmful.

I've tried macadamia nut (Omega-9) oil but I did not find it as neutral tasting as claimed.  Avocado oil (Omega-9) is neutral tasting and takes top spot for heat stability, even surpassing animal fats.  But monounsaturated fats (Omega-9) are neutral as far as effects on the EFA pathway go; what makes olive oil healthy per se is the non-fat bio-agents that are present in unrefined EVOO.  AFAIK, no other oil has those unique bio-agents.  Red palm kernel oil (not to be confused with palm oil) is also an interesting possibility to consider.

If you eat no processed food, lean meat diet (i.e. <=10% ground beef, visible fat trimmed off -loin steaks, etc.) and use EVOO for cooking and supplement with flax seed meal and fish oil, you will have a pretty evenly balanced intake among saturated, omega-6 (unrefined) and omega-3 (unrefined).  If you go hog wild on the pastured/grass-fed saturated fat meats and fats, the ratio will naturally change.  I'll leave it to Gumby to hold up the torch on that one.  There's a big difference between, say, coconut oil which is largely saturated fats (although of the stearic type) vs animal fat which is more or less 50%/50% saturated & Omega-9.

I think the lesson to be learned about oils is its not really the fat type per se, but the sub-components of the fat type, the processing of them, as well as their end effects on the body.  Clearly, fats can be inflammatory as well as cholesterol raising or lowering.  I'm not of the belief from the evidence that cholesterol is anything to worry about, but the inflammatory cascade is what I believe I deal with on a personal basis, not just theoretical.  If my body is really a walking lab detector for toxins, then it says NO to all fats except EVOO, EPA/DHA and ALA.  It will not even accept adultered EVOO's which is a huge and ongoing scam.  We'll see if it will eventually learn to accept pastured saturated fats or vegetable saturated fats.  But before that happens, I am having all 37 types of fatty acids checked to rule out any irregularities (its been on my to do list for years, but this topic brought it back to the forefront).

[MachineGhost]

What potential issues do you see with this diet. 

Well, your brain alone needs 110 grams of carbohydrates a day just to function.  Considering how much and the type of carbs S.A.D. people eat, I don't find that to be anywhere near a huge amount.  For me, it works out perfectly to fill the rest of the calories I require with protein and fat.  Since I carb cycle after weight training, I am not in a steady state of fat adaptive energy burning so the negative effects are definitely noticeable after a few days when going below 110 (very easy to do on an unprocessed, minimal fruit diet).

Do you ingest a lot of coconut oil?  Because the brain can adapt to burning MCT (ketones) instead of glucose.  That can make it a lot easier to go low carb.  In fact, MCT is being used with Alzheimer's which is essentially a third form of diabetes, i.e. glucose resistance by the brain.

[MachineGhost]

Yeah. Unfortunately, we all have been exposed to some very nasty stuff. However, exposure to toxins is nothing new for humans. Even hundreds of years ago, our ancestors had wood fireplaces burning constantly in their homes. This exposed them to all sorts of harmful airborne toxins on a regular basis. Luckily, the human body is usually pretty good at shedding toxins. Problems generally arise when those toxins surpass an individual's threshold over time.

There's almost 70,000 synthetic chemicals in the modern world and very few have ever been investigated.  Theres no way in hell that the present environment is even remotely comparable to the late 1800's or earlier.  What would have worked for, say, Billy the Kid in moving his bowel or detoxing his liver (old time herbal formulas), neeeds to be seriously amplified nowadays.

[MachineGhost]

http://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/deco ... ct-labels/

[BearBones]

Oils don't have to be esterified into trans-fats for their Omega-6/Omega-3 content to turn harmful.

What does esterification have to do making a trans fat? Trans is just the stereoisomeric configuration of a cis double bond, as I recall. I thought that these were unrelated chemical processes.

[MachineGhost]

What does esterification have to do making a trans fat? Trans is just the stereoisomeric configuration of a cis double bond, as I recall. I thought that these were unrelated chemical processes.

That might not have been the right term, but I couldn't think of it what the conversion was called.

[Benko]

I would not recommend it, but one can live on a no/ultra low carb diet i.e. there are no essential carbohydrates (or close to it).

Just curious about your concerns about the low carb diet. 

I see no problems with a low carb diet, it is probably the best diet for many people.  That  sentence was referring to NO OR ULTRA LOW CARB diets, which don't allow e.g. berries and other healthful carbs.

My thoughts on diet are here:

FYI: toward a healthy diet
http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... ic.php?t=6

[Storm]

Thanks for reposting that amazing thread, Benko.  I shamelessly stole ZedThou's post for my signature - it was just too funny to pass up... 

[MediumTex]

Thanks for reposting that amazing thread, Benko.  I shamelessly stole ZedThou's post for my signature - it was just too funny to pass up...   ;D

If he added wearing leather chaps to eating sardines it would be perfect.

[BearBones]

My thoughts on diet are here:

FYI: toward a healthy diet
http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... ic.php?t=6

Thanks for quoting this again, Benko. I missed it the first time around. Seems very common sense, non-dogmatic and well rounded, kind of like a dietary PP.

[Gumby]

My thoughts on diet are here:

FYI: toward a healthy diet
http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... ic.php?t=6

Thanks for quoting this again, Benko. I missed it the first time around. Seems very common sense, non-dogmatic and well rounded, kind of like a dietary PP.

Yes, I missed that too. It was an excellent post. Great advice there.

[smurff]

Thanks for reposting that amazing thread, Benko.  I shamelessly stole ZedThou's post for my signature - it was just too funny to pass up... 

That's a great quote.

[MachineGhost]

Previously, a number of nutritionists and scientists have warned that the Western-style diet  – most notably featuring fast foods, promotes type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. As Western foods become more widely available in Asia, public health experts have begun to observe rising disease and death rates due to diabetes and coronary heart disease in Asian nations. Andrew O. Odegaard from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (Minnesota, USA), and colleagues analyzed data collected on more than 52,000 subjects, ages 45 to 74 years, enrolled in the Singapore Chinese Health Study. The team followed participants are for five years, during which the subjects were asked about their fast food consumption habits, and tracked for the onset of type-2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. The subjects who consumed Western-style fast food two or more times a week were at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus and dying of coronary heart disease, as compared to their peers with little or no reported such intake.  Specifically, the coronary heart disease risk increased by 56%, and diabetes odds by 27%, among Chinese Singaporeans who ate fast food at least twice a week. Warning that: "Western-style fast food intake is associated with increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus and of coronary heart disease mortality in an Eastern population,”? the study authors submit that: "These findings suggest the need for further attention to global dietary acculturation in the context of ongoing epidemiological and nutrition transitions.”?

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/ ... osis/33601

[Gumby]

That's not surprising. Fast food uses a lot of cheap/rancid polyunsaturated vegetable oils, soy and factory farmed meats.

However, any study that reaches a very simple conclusion (i.e. fast food leads to death and disease) is likely over-simplifying things. See related thread: Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science.

[MachineGhost]

What do you think of this?

People are different. In a study by Corella et al in 2010, when saturated fat intake was greater than 10% of calories in individuals carrying the APOE4 allele, the risk of heart disease was over 300% higher. About 25 to 30 percent of Americans carry this allele. But cholesterol skeptics have convinced many Americans with the APOE4 allele to try a high animal fat diet and it's giving them heart disease.

[Gumby]

What do you think of this?

People are different. In a study by Corella et al in 2010, when saturated fat intake was greater than 10% of calories in individuals carrying the APOE4 allele, the risk of heart disease was over 300% higher. About 25 to 30 percent of Americans carry this allele. But cholesterol skeptics have convinced many Americans with the APOE4 allele to try a high animal fat diet and it's giving them heart disease.

Most studies conflate trans fats and saturated fats into one category. This is often done by accident (i.e. "butter" confused with "margarine"). Very few people cook with pure, non-hydrogenated, saturated fats. More likely the study found people who were eating factory-farmed meats and cooking them with rancid polyunsaturated oils. Even Lard isn't a pure saturated fat. Lard is roughly 48% monounsaturated fat, 40% saturated and 12% polyunsaturated. Olive oil contains 48% monounsaturated fat and 13% saturated fat. So, it's a very complex thing to boil down to a simple conclusion like the one you posted. Nothing is that simple. But journals like to publish simple headlines.

Unless the study made a Herculean effort to scrutinize every morsel of fat that entered people's mouths, it's most likely that the researchers jumped to a misleading conclusion.

For instance, it turns out that most olive oils today (even expensive ones) have been adultered with cheap polyunsaturated oils. The consumer thinks they have bought a mostly pure monounsaturated fat, but in fact they have actually bought olive oil mixed with canola oil. Not my olive oil, you say? Think again. The New Yorker (and others) have exposed the criminal enterprises that have doctored most olive oils. Few olive oils are pure these days. And most ghee sold in supermarkets in India these days are hydrogenated.

Anyway... I believe the quote you referenced refers to this study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20688498

From what I can tell (without reading the study, since I don't have access) the researchers of that study did not observe that mortality was higher in the ApoE4 group that supposedly ate more saturated fat. All they observed was that "risk factors" for Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) increased when ApoE4 individuals supposedly ate more saturated fat. What does that mean? Without reading the report (as I don't have access) my guess is that LDL levels were observed to be higher for those ApoE4 individuals (the so-called "bad" cholesterol). Having high LDL does not necessarily mean that an individual has heart disease. Some people have high cholesterol and low inflammation. Some people have low cholesterol and high inflammation. Sometimes the LDL is large and fluffy, and sometimes it is small and dense. It's unclear how precise the researchers were in looking at CHD risk.

Furthermore, ApoE4 is considered to be an "Ancestral" allele — which means that supposedly most primitive humans were ApoE4. We know that most humans used to eat high amounts of saturated fat — right up until the mid-19th Century, when mass production of refined grains and refined sugar entered the diet. Are we really supposed to believe that our ancestors were all at risk of dying of heart disease? Seems unlikely. Perhaps our ApoE4 ancestors were walking around with high levels of LDL and weren't at risk of heart disease. Or maybe our ancestors just ate less food and it didn't matter. Nobody knows.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that about half of all published studies are pretty much crap.

See...Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science