One Thing You’re Probably Doing to Derail Your Health Goals
During my thirty years of teaching aerobics and personal training I’ve had many clients and participants ask my advice on nutrition, being healthy and maintaining a reasonable body weight. Although I could probably give a mile-long list of tips, I know they really only want to know a “magic bullet” or “secret strategy” that’s fast, easy and convenient. I get it! We live in an age of convenience and quick fixes. When we’re sick, we’d rather take a pill than give our body the rest and nutrition it needs to heal on its own. It’s no wonder drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic are so popular as diabetes and/or weight management strategies. However, drugs are not only expensive, but come with a litany of risks and side effects not to mention the fact that the long-term effects of many of these drugs is still unknown. (https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/ozempic-side-effects)
The one thing I’ve always tried to do personally and have advised others to do for overall general health is to avoid processed foods. Recently I heard a podcast from Dr. Mercola where he made the same statement. In fact, people tell me all the time that they know they need to avoid processed foods. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we are all in agreement of what processed foods really are. For the past thirty years, I’ve heard if you want to be healthy or lose weight, you have to avoid the inner aisles of the grocery store. That seemed pretty easy for me to understand. I needed to shop the perimeter of the grocery store where the fresh and frozen produce, meats and dairy products are typically housed and avoid the inner aisles of boxed and packaged foods that had been prepared or “processed” in a manufacturing plant.
When the documentary ‘Super Size Me’ came out (and probably several years prior), many people became aware of how unhealthy fast-food restaurants actually are. I remember having birthday parties for my young daughters at McDonalds! It was a thing during the 1990s! It wasn’t hard for people to lump fast foods in with their list of processed foods to avoid. However, what many of us (I include myself in this list) have failed to realize is that even the higher-end upscale restaurants are sources of processed foods! Let’s face it, restaurants are trying to stay in business and make a profit so they have to find inexpensive and convenient ways to deliver meals to their customers.
Now before you exit out of this blog because you already KNOW that you will NEVER give up fine dining, give me a chance to explain what the biggest health offenders are so you can become more involved in identifying and ordering foods from your favorite restaurants that pose the least concerns for your health. The first thing we need to realize is that although we have been told that saturated fat is bad for us and that we should eat more unsaturated fats in the form of vegetable oils, we haven’t really been told the whole story. Although we know that saturated fats are mostly found in animal fats, does it really occur to us that we are animals? About 50% of our cell membranes are composed of saturated fatty acids which gives them the stiffness and integrity they need to function properly. In fact, the fatty acids our body derives from the foods we eat compose the membranes of our cells making it important to consume a healthy balance of saturated and unsaturated fats. Another interesting fact to note is that coconut oil is even more saturated than animal fat being about 92% saturated, but we’re never told not to consume coconut oil!
Fatty acids are classified as either saturated or unsaturated. Unsaturated fatty acids include monounsaturated (i.e. olive oil) and polyunsaturated (Omega 6s and Omega 3s) fats. At the turn of the century, our diets primarily consisted of saturated and monounsaturated fats whereas today most of the fats in our diet are polyunsaturated including vegetable oils derived from soy, corn, safflower and canola. Unfortunately, while saturated and monounsaturated fats are relatively stable, polyunsaturated fats are not. What does that mean? It means that when polyunsaturated fats are heated, they go rancid (i.e. form free radicals and break down into dangerous, reactive aldehydes). Unfortunately, most processed foods, including those prepared in restaurants (high-end and fast-food), use polyunsaturated oils that are already heated and rancid when processed by the manufacturer and sold to the consumer who then either heats it again during the preparation of the food or uses it in the dressings and sauces that come with your salads and entrees. Even if these restaurants use cold pressed (unheated) polyunsaturated oils in their dressings and sauces, we don’t need more than about a tablespoon daily of these polyunsaturated fatty acids!
You probably have heard mainstream media discussing the fact that we need more Omega 3 fatty acids in our diet because we currently consume too many Omega 6 fats. It’s true that our ancestors had an Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio that was more 1 to 1. Whereas today, our Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio is as high as 1 to 20! Although it’s true we need to decrease our intake of Omega 6 fats (primarily found in processed foods and restaurant foods), no more than about 4% of our caloric intake should include polyunsaturates which means that we should attain a healthier Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio not by increasing our intake of Omega 3s, but by substantially decreasing our intake of Omega 6s. So how do we do that?
First, we need to know which oils to avoid so we can recognize them in the ingredients of the foods we are purchasing. The “seed oils” we need to avoid in processed foods and restaurants include: canola, safflower, corn, sunflower, soybean and cottonseed oils. These oils should never be consumed after being heated (cooking, frying, baking) and have certainly been heated if found in foods that you haven’t prepared personally with oil labeled cold-pressed. If you are purchasing processed foods, look for those made with olive, coconut or palms oils. Of course, animal fats like butter, tallow or lard are perfectly safe, but I rarely if ever find them used in today’s processed foods.
Since I rarely eat processed foods, learning about these unsafe polyunsaturated vegetable oils wasn’t a big concern for me. However, when I realized how many of the restaurants I frequent are using these oils in the foods they prepare, I was highly distressed! My first reaction was to avoid eating out at all. However, I knew it was unrealistic to think we would never eat out again. Instead, I learned about an app called Seed Oil Scout. It empowers its users to communicate with their restaurants about the oils they are using and identify options to avoid these unhealthy seed oils. Once I started getting comfortable about communicating with my favorite restaurants, I learned that most of them use canola oil pretty liberally. I don’t think they realize how bad it is due to mainstream propaganda (or marketing), and I think they use it because of how inexpensive it is.
By talking with the owners, chefs and servers of these restaurants, I’ve learned that I can typically ask them to prepare any of the dishes I want in butter or olive oil. I make sure they understand that I don’t want to eat anything prepared with seed oils and let them tell me which foods to avoid. Typically, the dressings and sauces are prepared with canola oil or a canola blend, so I either bring my own dressing or select foods that aren’t prepared with dressings or sauces. I also avoid desserts because they may contain seed oils. When my husband talked to the owner of our favorite bakery about what oils she uses, she said she uses canola oil in all of her cakes and pies. I know that many of the restaurants purchase their desserts from local bakeries and probably can’t tell you what ingredients are in their desserts unless they’re made in house. I’ve also learned that most of the nut milks contain seed oils which gives them their creaminess. I had become quite fond of getting an oat milk latte from Jittery Joes occasionally until I took the time to read the ingredients on an oat milk carton at the grocery store.
I know it seems like a lot and this blog is definitely longer than intended, but if we want to restore good health to ourselves and our family, we have got to become informed and aware. Although my husband and I have gone out to eat several times since learning about the dangers of seeds oils and their widespread use at our favorite restaurants, we eat at home much more frequently now and have not only found we enjoy our home cooking much more than eating out, but we have felt better physically, lost some weight and saved a lot of money! On those rare occasions when we have dined out, I simply tell the server that I don’t want any foods prepared with seed oils (in particular canola oil since this seems to be the seed oil of choice) and ask that they prepare my food in butter. If the server isn’t sure what they can do, they talk with the chef who tells them what foods would be best for me to order. It’s never been a big ordeal, and I’ve gotten much better and more comfortable with practice!
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/07/17/linoleic-acid.aspx
https://www.jayfeldmanwellness.com/omega-3s-are-not-the-healthy-fats/
https://nourishingtraditions.com/foods-that-make-you-fat/
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/know-your-fats/trans-fats-in-the-food-supply/#gsc.tab=0
Fallon, Sally. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. 2nd ed., 2001.