After having a little time away from the website it's time to bust back into 2011!
What better way to do this then to chat about fats and oils.
If you're doing a spring clean on the kitchen cupboard you might want to think about what you throw away and what you stock back up on. Maybe the below article will help shed some light on some good fats and not so good fats and oils.
Oils: When picking Oils. Organic is best, pick oils extracted via a cold pressing process. Cold pressed oils are oils that are extracted through very minimal heat. When you use high heats to extract oils (or chemicals) you damage and denature the product making it more rancid and oxidising the fats and oil.
Fats: When picking fats go for Free Range, Organic, Sustainable for the environment and the soil. Pick fats from animals that were grass fed, grass finished, happy and healthy. Check the source of your animals home, go to the farms. With fat, you want to be sure you're getting the BEST, cleanest source possible as fats attract toxins. If your animal was not very healthy and was toxic then the fats would correlate with this type of living.
Saturated fats to eat:
Coconut oil
Palm Oil
(these oils are very good to cook with as they have a high heat tolerance)
Butter
Ghee
Lard
Tallow
Full FAT dairy (don't go any low fat, skim products as it's just extracting more valuable resources from the original product)
Meats with fat from grass finished sources (cooked at a low temperature. Under 120 degrees for longer periods of time)
Fish (hard to find good quality, look around)
Unsaturated:
Avocados
Seasame Oil
Olive Oil
Nut Oils
Flaxseed Oils
Nuts and seeds (activated is best)
(As stated above. Cold Pressed is best from organic sources. Ideally you would consume these oils WITHOUT heating. As in a salad dressing etc and not cook with these oils. If you want to use an oil to cook with, look towards coconut oil and palm oil, as these oils are more stable under high heat)
Saturated fats to avoid:
Margarine
Trans fats (pretty much in anything that comes in a packet)
Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils
Fats that are from poor sources. Such as commercially raised animal fats (if commercially raised animal meat is all you have access to, avoid the fat as the fat is where the toxins will be be stored in an unhealthy animal)
Unsaturated fats to avoid:
Soybean Oil (85 - 95% of soy beans are genetically modified)
Grapeseed Oil
Canola Oil
Corn Oil
(generally these types of oils go through a massive process from soil to seed to produce. These oils generally would have been extracted through a high heat type method to get maximum amounts of oil to be sold.)
As always own your own decisions on any food you decide to eat. We are all 100% responsible for ourselves. Don't follow, lead with strong educated decisions on your own health. Your body is wonderful and amazing in all that it does. Be in tune with it!
In health and happiness,
Shane
Question posted by Brett Sutton:
ReplyDeleteLike the blog Shane, can you tell me more about cooking with coconut oil? Does it taste? How much? Can I replace my olive oil with it? Also you have mentioned slow cooking meat before, I am curious about your reasoning?
Response:
T...hanks for the support on the website. Glad you like the blog.
The reason it's better to cook with coconut oil is that coconut oil is more stable under high heat. In that it does not change or denature as easily as other oils like Olive oil and other oils.
I enjoy the taste and as you'd guess has a coconut taste to it.
Price ranges from $20 a litre to usually $30. You would only use as much as you need depending on the job and a litre will last you a long time usually. Also I use it as a moisturiser for my skin after i shower.
You should (in my opinion) replace your olive oil with it if you're cooking under high heats. But as always only do so if you believe that this is right for you and your beliefs and understandings.
The reason I advocate slow cooking over any other type of cooking method is based on nutritional principals. When you use heat over 120 degrees Celsius you start to destroy enzymes with in the food. Enzymes are very heat sensitive. You also denature the structure of the fats, cause them to act very differently within the body when you use high heats to cook with as a posed to slow cooking.
The main reason is the fact that heat destroys, enzymes, minerals, nutrients and changes the structure of the food and how it effects and reacts with and in the body. Slow cooking on the other hand has a lesser impact on these things.
Back in Grok days it was believed that fire was more so used for keeping predators away and also warmth instead of cooking.