Moderation doesn’t work with a lot of things when it comes to improving your health. If your car runs on unleaded fuel, you can’t put in half a gallon of diesel and fill up the tank the rest of the way with premium unleaded and expect it to run well. Maybe that’s not the best analogy, but you’ll remember it. Cooking oils are the first place I advise people to clean up their diets. It’s so easy to go to your pantry and throw out the vegetable oil, and it can make such a difference in long-term health. How? Consuming healthier oil reduces inflammation.
Some “foods” are just not suitable for human consumption. Seed oils are among those. I feel compelled to write this because I am increasingly seeing more unhealthy oils marketed as healthy because they are plant-based. My friend, margarine isn’t good for you. It doesn’t matter if it is marketed as plant-based butter.
You may be wondering why I’m talking about eating any oils at all. Won’t all the saturated fat and cholesterol clog your arteries? Nope. Not unless you’re eating a diet high in refined carbs and high in saturated fat. Modern seed oils are inflammatory. Healthy fats are anti-inflammatory. Inflammation causes arteries to swell. That can lead to high cholesterol, blockages, and other cardiovascular problems. In addition to that, dietary cholesterol is necessary for healthy hormone formation, help our bodies produce vitamin D, and aid in fat digestion.
Contrary to what pharmaceutical commercials would lead us to believe, saturated fat and cholesterol do not go straight into our arteries and stick there. This mass oversimplification has led the western world so far away from traditional diets, it’s actually quite sad when I think too long about it. Imagine you eat a bunch of carrots. Do they go straight into your arteries? That’s just not how digestion works.
What about the research that showed that saturated fats are bad? The early studies around saturated fats lumped them together with trans fats. All research shows and all nutrition professionals agree trans fats are terrible.
So, maybe you’re thinking...so which oils should we be eating? See below.
Oils to Eat
Butter
Coconut Oil
Olive Oil
Fat from healthy animals- Beef Tallow, Bacon Fat, Duck Fat, etc.
Cacao butter
Flaxseed oil (cold, as a dietary supplement)
Fish oil (as a dietary supplement)
Avocado Oil (Some new research showed that a lot of brands of avocado oil are rancid. Don’t go cheap here. Smell it before you use it.)
Sesame Oil
MCT Oil
Palm Oil
Oils to *Never* Eat
Canola Oil
Soybean Oil
Cottonseed Oil
Sunflower Oil
Grapeseed Oil
Vegetable Oil
Corn Oil
Vegetable Lard
Margarine
So, I put asterisks around the word never because my intention is to empower and inform you, not to dictate to you a rigid list of dos and don’ts. Two or three times a month, I eat something that has canola oil near the end of the ingredient list. It’s Canyon Bakehouse bread. I hate that they put it in there, but it’s the best tasting and most easily accessible gluten-free bread I’ve found so far, so I compromise there. One day, I’ll make my own gluten-free bread, or I’ll get comfortable mail ordering it. But for now, that’s my decision and I’m sticking to it. Be informed, make the best decisions you can, give your self grace, and toss out that bottle of Crisco in the back of your pantry.
Use my guide to switching to real food that has a complete pantry clean-out list.