Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy The Importance of Fat {Especially for a Woman} and a Book Review

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The Importance of Fat {Especially for a Woman} and a Book Review

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 07:30 PM PDT

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I just finished reading a fascinating book called “The Good Fat Cookbook“. It’s not what you might think, especially if you subscribe to contemporary thought that designates polyunsaturated fats as good and saturated fats as evil incarnate. The back of the book will give you a clue, though, as it lists the Good and Bad fats under consideration. On the list of good fats: butter, coconut, red meat, eggs, bacon, milk, and ice cream. Surprised? How about the bad fats? Canola oil, reduced-fat anything, soy, vegetable oil, and more. Doubly surprised?

If you were even mildly surprised by that good and bad listing, you should read this book! Before diving into some delicious and awesome healthy-fat-filled recipes, author Fran McCullough takes you through the history and science regarding all the various kinds of dietary fats, and explains all the ramifications they have on our health. And even though I’ve been a full-fat enthusiast for years, I learned a lot in this book, so I can recommend it for seasoned whole foodies, too.

Here are some quotes from the book:

In 1875, Americans ate 30 pounds of butter per year. … In 2002, Americans have dropped their fat consumption by 17 percent since 1977. The obesity rate has increased by 25%. Americans now eat 5 lbs of butter, 11-12 lbs of margarine, per person a year. Since 1952, trans fat consumption has risen 2500%. We still eat the same amount of food we ate in 1900, but we eat 127% more sweeteners….

According to Dr. Ron Rosedale of the Colorado Center for Metabolic Medicine, fat is the body’s preferred fuel, not sugar (in all carbohydrates). He points out that when the body stores excess sugar, it’s stored as fat, in a good usable form. Fats not only don’t make you fat (unless you eat them to huge excess – and even then, only if you also ingest enough sugars and starches to stimulate your fat-storage system), they’re good weapons against obesity.

We know… that by and large the food we’re eating in the early twenty-first century is not making us flourish. There are exceptions, of course: the Japanese and French, who happen to be the most and the second most healthy people in the world. Both these groups eat quite a different menu from the standard American one, and both their diets are full of good fats (fatty fish and eggs for the Japanese, butter, cheese, duck fat, olive oil, and an occasional treat of foie gras for the French). Right behind these two exemplary groups of healthy populations are the Mediterraneans, whose famous diet, rich in monounsaturated fats such as olive oil, is especially tasty. … It seems that every geographical area supplies essential fats for its population in a natural, accessible form. Among the Greenland Eskimos, traditionally there were no reliable supplies of vegetables and fruits, but fatty fish and seaweed provided them a completely healthy diet, perhaps the healthiest of all. In the Pacific islands, there’s fish and coconut – that miraculous substance. In Mexico, there are avocados and fish and lard. In Russia, caviar is a traditional miracle cure, prescribed for pregnant and nursing women and anyone whose health needs a boost. Even in the Ireland of the great famine, there were fish and seaweed and wild purslane for the taking. Only in America, where we insist on having it all, do we have very little of these valuable foods, mainly because we’ve taken them out of our food supply in the misguided notion that our health will improve as a result.

The food industry and healthy food police, those talking-head health experts with their extensive media exposure, have promoted polyunsaturated fats mercilessly, which is why all of us think they’re so good for us. These fats do reduce cholesterol in the blood, but they have a disastrous downside: they increase it in the tissues, which is where it really matters. They are deposited in the vascular membranes, and because they’re unstable, cholesterol has to come and pave them over to stabilize them. That’s the way, current thinking goes, we get vascular blockage that can lead to a heart attack. but, in fact, only polyunsaturated fats oxodize cholesterol; saturated fat, from animal sources, won’t oxidize that cholesterol, which is what makes it dangerous and likely to trigger cardiovascular incidents and strokes. … And for strokes too, according to Dr. Mary Enig, polyunsaturated fats are initiators, while saturated fats are protective.

I could offer you a lot more quotes from the book, but really, you should read it yourself. Some of the topics McCullough covers:

how the cholesterol-heart disease connection came about, and how it is faulty
how the different types of fat work in your body
why the government and media make recommendations that have been scientifically proven to be faulty
good sources of good fats
what are the best fats for your budget
why polyunsaturated oils are so terrible for your body
free radicals, oxidation, and antioxidants

There are some things I noticed in the book that you should be aware of. For one, I find the author to be occasionally confusing, and seems to contradict herself at times. Also, while she is well-researched regarding fats in the diet, she misses the mark on some of her other recommendations (for example, she offers Splenda as a good substitute for sugars in the dessert section of the cookbook).

Over all, though, I highly recommend reading this book, whether or not you are well versed in the sad history of fat in America. You will find it fascinating and thought-provoking if nothing else. And besides, she’s got some great recipes in the back of the book, like Lemon Posset, and Cuban Roast Pork with Lime.

Since my topic is Women’s Wellness, though, I want to focus for a second on the connection between fats and hormones, which she mentions in the book. Here’s a quote:

What we have deprived ourselves of – the delicious, satisfying good fats of traditional diets all around the world – are also startlingly health-protective and offer many other desirable benefits, such as good skin, great hair, a good sex life, fertility, a vital immune system, enough vitamin E for your heart, optimum hormone production and antiaging properties. (This sounds like a headline list for a woman’s magazine! Only you won’t find these things in bottles or pills, you’ll find them in fat! ~ AS) Your hormones, which control every cell in your body, don’t work properly without adequate fat, and neither does your immune system.

Did you know that your body needs cholesterol to make hormones? Or that eating low-fat dairy products inhibits your body’s ability to ovulate? Or that essential fatty acids can ease PMS symptoms? Read about some more essential roles that fat plays in the body here.

Clearly, our bodies require fats, and not just in small amounts, either. It’s a commonly accepted fact that fat is one of the three macronutrients – foods our bodies need in large amounts in order to survive and thrive. Many people try to reduce either carbs or fats, but the simple truth is we need both.

While the media continues to draw the opposite conclusion, it seems to me that all the evidence points to this: fats are essential to health, especially to a woman’s reproductive health. The only kind of fat proven to be detrimental to reproductive health is trans fats, and we all already knew those were evil. But basic biology and nutrition show us clearly that we need to have an adequate amount of fat in our diet in order for all our body’s systems to run smoothly.

Women, in particular, struggle with this because of our body shape and image. We want to look skinny, so we follow the contemporary advice that instructs us to eat less fat so we have less fat. The problem is that this advice is flawed on so many levels. First of all, women aren’t meant to be super thin. We’ve all heard of the gymnasts and ballerinas with amenorrhea (absence of menstruation) because they don’t have enough body fat and exercise too much, but we don’t stop to consider that the same thing could be happening to us, just not on as extreme of a level. Maybe we don’t want to look like a gymnast, but we still starve ourselves or work ourselves to the bone trying to get rid of something that’s supposed to be there. (Now, of course, there’s the opposite extreme. Obesity doesn’t help your reproductive system – or any system in your body for that matter – either. I’m talking about a healthy weight here!). Secondly, fat doesn’t make you fat!

Which brings me back to what I started with: read the Good Fat Cookbook. Or Eat Fat, Lose Fat. Or In Defense of Food: an Eater’s Manifesto. Or The Maker’s Diet. Or Nourishing Traditions. All of these books will convince you of your need for fat in your diet, and far more eloquently (and accurately!) than I ever could.

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Save Money with Groceries with OAMS {on MoneySavingMom}

Posted: 12 Mar 2012 01:34 PM PDT

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How to Make the Most of Your Grocery Budget Dollars

It bears repeating (over and over) that OAMS (once a month shopping) for groceries saves you lots of money, which is why I wrote a guest post on Money Saving Mom that tells you all about OAMS in a nutshell!

Almost a year ago, I switched my grocery shopping routine from weekly trips to monthly. It was one of the smartest moves I've made in my adult life.

Seriously, shopping once a month for groceries has helped me stick to my (very tight) grocery budget more than any other trick I've tried. More than coupons, more than sales, more than stockpiling, more than any other money-saving tip you can name (because I've done – and in some cases, continue to do – them all).

It seems counter-intuitive, but it works. Here's why:

Read about why OAMS works so well here.