A dear friend of mine recently went to the hospital with chest pains. It turned out that he just had heartburn, thank goodness. But nevertheless, people with concerns about their cardiovascular health or their weight are often given the same standard advice: eat a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet and get more exercise.
While the advice to exercise is always good, the myth that eating saturated fat and cholesterol have anything to do with heart health or obesity is so pervasive that even people who should know better (like doctors) still spout this claptrap.
Even the American Heart Association (AHA) recently revised its nutritional guidelines, increasing the daily recommendations for fat. “The science just wasn’t there,” says Robert Eckel, president of the AHA and professor of endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
So if there is no evidence linking dietary saturated fat and cholesterol to cardiovascular disease and obesity, just what is taxing our hearts and thickening our waistlines?
We’ll look at the first culprit this week:
Polyunsaturated cooking oils.
Polyunsaturated cooking oils like corn, soybean, canola, safflower and sunflower oils are often touted as “healthy” oils. While agribusiness conglomerates have done a good PR job with their number one, best-selling product, nothing could be further from the truth. (Note: Also see “The Skinny on Fat, Part 2: How Carbohydrates Make You Fat” for the complete story.)
An Inside Look at Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs)
There are three types of fats: monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and saturated. Our bodies are mostly comprised of monounsaturated and saturated fats. Only about 4% of our body fat is polyunsaturated. By consuming polyunsaturated corn, canola and soybean oils in almost everything we eat (if you eat the Standard American Diet), you are taking in lots of fats your body doesn’t know how to use.
Unlike saturated or monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats tend to be liquid even when refrigerated. They also go rancid very easily, particularly when heated. This rancidity causes lots of free radical damage in your body.
In fact, the high-temperature, industrialized process of extracting polyunsaturated oils actually makes the oil go rancid! Food manufacturers then have to refine, deodorize and bleach these rancid oils to make them palatable. And then when you heat them (say, for cooking), these rancid oils become further oxidized, which causes even more problems—from cell membrane damage to wrinkles to arterial plaque build up.
Fatty-Acid Imbalances
Another major problem with PUFA oils from corn, soybean, canola, cottonseed, sunflower or safflower is that they contain a large amount of omega-6 fatty acids. Animals and humans require both omega-3s and omega-6s in their diets to be healthy: The proper ration of omega-6s to omega-3s is 4:1, but most Americans eat a ratio closer to 20:1, which creates a host of problems in the body.
Omega-6s are fats produced by seeds harvested in autumn, whereas omega-3s are produced by plants growing in the spring. Because our diet is so heavy in fall omega-6 fats, we are now eating a diet that is meant to fatten us up for winter, when weather is cold and calories are scarce.
But today food is never scarce for the average American. The base of our food supply has shifted from leaves to seeds, and this simple change means our bodies are getting programmed to store more fat, leading to obesity and all its associated diseases.
According to an article in Prevention magazine, omega-6s are slower and stiffer than omega-3s, and, they promote blood clotting and inflammation, the underlying causes of many diseases, including heart disease and arthritis. Omega-3s, on the other hand, promote blood flow and reduce inflammation, which may prevent things like heart disease.
But because they’re in constant competition to enter our cells, if your diet consists of too many omega-6s, your body will be deficient in omega-3s. And omega-3 deficiency is what’s been happening to us as we’ve been eating more and more seed fats in the form of soybean, canola, corn, and other vegetable oils.
Consumption of corn, canola and soybean oils has more than tripled in the last 100 years. A century ago, nearly all fats eaten in the U.S. came from animals, which are primarily saturated fats. That’s how it’s been for humans for millions of years, with the exception of seasonal nuts and oily seeds for some people in some parts of the world. A century ago, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity were also extremely uncommon in this country. In fact, the first heart attack in recorded U.S. history occurred in 1912, less than a decade after the widespread introduction of polyunsaturated yellow seed oils.
Over the past century, heart disease has risen in tandem with our increasing intake of omega-6 rich soybean, corn and canola oil, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). So have depression, arthritis, obesity, insulin resistance, and many cancers. While other dietary factors such as increased consumption of calories, trans fats, and sugar undoubtedly contribute, our essential fatty acid imbalance is a key player in most of these illnesses.
Over the same 100-year period that omega-6s became so dominant in our diets, omega-3s began disappearing from our food supply. Cows used to be raised on grass and other greens, producing meat, milk, and cheese with high concentrations of omega-3s. These were the animal products that our grandparents and great-grandparents grew up on, before industrial feedlots replaced family farms.
Now these livestock are fed corn and soy, and their tissues are swamped with omega-6s. Chickens, too, used to eat grass and grass-eating bugs. Those chickens produced eggs and meat that were high in omega-3s, but now they’re fed full of omega-6-rich corn and soy too.
So, it’s not that eating animal foods is, in and of itself, bad for your health; rather it is feeding an unnatural diet of corn, soy and pharmaceuticals to livestock that makes eating these foods less healthy.
Other Problems with PUFAs
In addition to rancidity, oxidation and an overabundance of omega-6 fatty acids, yellow seed oils have a host of environmental problems too.
Yellow seed oils are brand new to humankind, and they only exist because the chemical processes and machinery invented during the industrial revolution made it possible to extract them. Today, the majority of these industrial oils are manufactured from genetically engineered corn, soybeans, and rapeseed (canola) which have been heavily sprayed with Round-up (glyphosate) or atrazine, highly toxic, endocrine-disrupting herbicides, and other toxic pesticides.
Then these oils are extracted and refined using carcinogenic hexane (two carbon atoms short of octane—as in gasoline!), and are then finally bleached and deodorized to disguise their rancidity. The final product is not only essentially bad for you, but it is also contaminated with traces of several highly toxic petrochemicals.
All around, these oils are evil stuff to be avoided at all costs.
What Can You Do?
1. Limit or avoid omega-6 oils.
Read the labels on packages carefully and severely limit or avoid corn, soybean, canola and cottonseed oils, and all foods made with them. This includes fried foods from restaurants, and most snack foods like chips, popcorn, etc.
2. Eliminate trans fats.
Totally avoid partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated fats of any kind. If vegetable and seed oils weren’t bad enough, hydrogenating them turns them into the dangerous, heart-harming trans fats that everyone is warning about these days. Research shows that these fats “may raise blood sugar levels” and “alter metabolism in humans.”
Read your labels carefully: Commercial baked goods—such as crackers, cookies and cakes—and many fried foods, such as doughnuts and french fries—may contain hydrogenated trans fats. Shortenings and some margarine brands can contain hydrogenated trans fats too.
3. Use only healthy, traditional fats.
Traditional fats include:
- Lard (non-hydrogenated, especially from pasture-raised pigs)
- Tallow (especially from grass-fed cows)
- Butter or Ghee (especially from grass-fed cows)
- Coconut Oil (cold-pressed, unrefined “virgin” oil is best)
- Olive Oil (only cold-pressed, extra-virgin in dark bottles or cans)
- Avocado Oil (cold-pressed; great for high-heat)
These fats are incredibly stable and have been enjoyed safely by humans for thousands of years. They almost never go rancid and many can last for years stored in your pantry.
4. Eat more greens.
Leafy greens have a better balance of omega-3s to omega-6s than most seeds and grains (though flax and hemp seeds are notable exceptions). Omega-3s live in leaves, flax and hempseed as the omega-3 ALA (alpha-linolenic acid). Animals (like us) can convert ALA into even more dynamic omega-3s: EPA and DHA, which are essential for heart and brain health, especially in children. This conversion is very inefficient in humans, however, and that’s why the next two steps are so important.
Here are some tasty recipes for enjoying leafy greens:
- Marinated Turnip Greens (Gluten Free, Paleo, Vegan)
- Kale & Bok Choy Slaw with Spicy Sesame-Ginger Dressing (Gluten Free, Paleo, Vegan)
- Mustard Greens with Garlic Mayonnaise (Gluten Free, Paleo, Vegetarian)
5. Eat healthier meats.
Cows raised on grass produce meat, milk, and cheese with substantially more omega-3s than their corn-and soy-fed counterparts. Chickens fed a diet rich in bugs, flax and greens produce eggs that are as high in EPA and DHA as many species of fish. Grass-fed meats, dairy and eggs are more expensive than grain-fed, but the money you spend today is minor compared to the very steep medical price tag attached to a diet high in omega-6s. (Shop sustainably-raised meat online here.)
6. Eat more fish.
Wild-caught fish can also be a sustainable part of your new diet, as moderate fish consumption will be more effective when your diet has fewer omega-6s. Try to eat at least two meals of wild-caught, minimal-mercury fish per week. (Avoid farmed fish because they are fed GMO corn and soy!) Fish oil supplements can also help, though they’re not a long-term solution to this widespread nutritional deficiency. (Shop wild-caught seafood here.)
Related:
Resources
- This video from Food Renegade is about healthy fats and how to use them.
- The Great Cholesterol Con – an outstanding book on my Must-Read list
- High Cholesterol and Heart Disease – Myth or Truth?
- Omega Fats and Cardiovascular Disease
- The Vanishing Youth Nutrient
