The grocery’s cooking oil aisle looks like the pharmacy’s cough and cold remedy aisle.  It’s ridiculous and sheer marketing.  It’s an abominable ploy which vexes me to no end.  At least the pharmacy cough and cold remedy manufacturers can plead off with the fact that you were already sick when you perused their offerings.  The oil industry, on the other hand, is probably literally making you chronically ill.  I already feel that nutrition’s power over health is scorned, and when I go into the oil section at the store, I almost want to retch.

Fats and oils make up a basic building block of EVERY single cell in your body.  They are FUNDAMENTAL to function.  Things like nerve transmission and cells talking to each other DEPENDS on good quality oils and fats.  However, most grocery store oils and fats are rancid and gutted of their natural nutrients, like vitamin E; they are NOT good quality fats.  Did you even know that fats SHOULD come with nutrients?  We’ve been so negatively indoctrinated about fats, yet I feel they neglected to mention about all the wonderful things fat should offer and help!

Anyhow, these bad oils on the shelves–well, it’d be like walking into Lowe’s or Menards and seeing bent nails for sale or warped wood or a lawn mower with no engine!  Nobody would put up with this!  Because we all know those tools won’t do the job!  And I need you to know, if you really care about your health (or even if you don’t but you are in ill-health), you will need to examine closely the rubbish that is offered for sale as edible oil and fat. The tools for sale in the grocery oil and fat department are faulty.  Most won’t do the job.  Even the olive oil offered there.

I wrote an article for Molly Green Magazine on the topic of choosing a cooking oil.  I have cut and pasted some of it as I can, but please click over (it’s free and directs there easily) to read the rest.  And the graphics make it look SO pretty and so much easier to read!  I think you’ll like it better, especially if you’re on a phone or iPad.  I write because I like to, feel compelled to, and the editor is a friend, but all I get from them is a membership to Molly Green (and good terms with my friend).

	Read Dr. Fites’s article on fats and oils.
Time For An “Oil” Change

Excerpt from “Time for an Oil Change”

“From the Journal of the American Medical Association to Doctor Oz, I have explored the medical world’s current understanding and recommendations on fats so I could confidently share them with you. When it comes to the research on fats and oils, I am not exaggerating or lying when I say that one research study indicates we should fly east and another study shows we should fly west. Call me a Looney Toons cartoon character sporting a white angel on the right shoulder and a black angel on the left: “Saturated fats are bad.” “No, saturated fats are good.” “Soybean oil is good.” “No, soybean oil is bad.”

My confidence has waned. Yes, I’m a medical doctor by training but—wow! Have you looked at doctors lately? You and I both know that doctors manage their nutrition about as well as Hollywood manages marriage. Doctors tend to butcher nutrition like they work at a meat market. I feel like following the medical guidelines on fats hasn’t gotten me anything but Country Crock and a long wait outside the coronary unit while grandpa has triple bypass. Although the research is truly contradictory on fats, it seems guidelines were arbitrarily formed by cherry-picking studies and test subjects. I trust medical dietary guidelines now about as much as Wile E. Coyote.

Focus on Whole Fats

Just like we should be focusing on whole foods, we need to focus on whole fats. Let’s make it as simple as it can get. An olive is a whole food. Olive oil is not. Peanuts are whole foods. Peanut oil is not. Soybeans are a whole food. Soybean oil is not. Safflower is—yeah, I don’t know what safflowers are, but you get the idea, right? Oils and fats separated from their original products are processed foods. Even butter, lard, and tallow require some minor processing to make.

The safest way to eat your fats is as part of a complete food package. Nature always makes real food from a mix of saturated fat, unsaturated fat, omega-3s, and omega-6s. No whole foods are packaged with only saturated fat or omega-3s. None! And real food is bubble wrapped with natural “fat protectors” (vitamin E and anti-oxidants) to keep them from going bad in air, light, and heat. Once removed from their packaging, fats and oils lose their protection and start deteriorating to wreak havoc in our cells when eaten. Focus on real food and endeavor to use fats strategically, thinking of them as you do processed foods.

Picking an Oil or Fat

You need an oil or fat for the kitchen, though! I hear you. I know you can’t fry your eggs in olives. Whole foods are great, but like a car, the kitchen can’t run without some kind of lube. How do you pick? Well, the game has opened up a lot since we now have the green light from major medical journals on saturated fats. Saturated fats (like butter, lard, coconut oil, palm oil, and tallow) give pops of flavor and send signals to the brain that it has had enough to eat. They tolerate heat, air, and light a whole lot better than oils. Most oils are not very stable in light, heat, and air; they don’t tolerate being separated from their packages as well as saturated fats—and the research reports on them seem to change weekly. So let’s get started on picking a good oil:

The less time from harvest to your table, the better! As soon as the nut, seed, grain, or olive is harvested and pressed, it should be headed for sale. Sitting around in a vat, being shipped to another country, or hanging out by your kitchen stove is not healthy for an oil, and it is not healthy for your cells. Oils are not wines. They do not get better with aging. They become flat-out dangerous. The best oils will have the pressed date. The bottling date does not tell you when the product was pressed…”

	For more oil expertise tips, click here!
Time For An “Oil” Change

Closing

What you eat helps determine energy levels, mood, skin quality, heart health, and so much more.  My family has been impacted by nutrition, and I enjoy sharing what I learn with you.  Each person has a unique diet which suits their body best, and it may even change through the years of life.  However, true health must rest on fats from high quality whole food sources, rounded out with oils and fats extracted in the most fresh, pure, and simple way from nature’s gifts.

Terri