Over the last 18 months I have changed my diet a lot. I decided to do a lot of extra research into a topic that seems to confuse so many people and also use myself as a guinea pig and live by example.
I changed my thoughts on food and I changed how I cooked my foods. I changed where I sourced my foods and how I prepared them (processed).
I found that a lot of people were Anti-fat and it got me thinking, why is this?
I never stopped to think about it before. I just went about my day reiterating what I had read or been told without having even researched or scratched the surface on what I was saying and quoting. Simply, I didn’t OWN my food decisions. I just followed the trend…I trusted the government, I trusted food companies, I trusted anyone that would mention food… Never thinking that what they were saying could be helping them earn money or focus more on things other then my own health or the health of any individual.
The bad news for me was that the TREND I found was 1:3 – 1:2 Australians were/are dying from health related diseases. Heart disease, diabetes,
Could the information be wrong? Could we be missing an important step in the evolution of humans? Was our food nourishing our bodies enough that we were continuing to be healthy, and reproduce? Was the information leading to diseases (dis-ease) and fertility problems and eventually we would die out??
I decided to start thinking a little before making purchases. What was my money supporting? Was it good for the environment, humanity and myself? Did I need to eat what I was eating? Where else could I get nutrition from? Were the foods I was eating supporting health and happiness?
I searched for a long time, read heaps of view points and am to his day still searching for the most correct response to help answer these questions. The questions will go on for ever.
What I have found so far is a lot of confusion, some things more confusing then others. Some points making perfect sense but confliction with other….. wow, how was anyone supposed to know what was going on and what to truly do??
The easiest way I found I could ever simplify things was to ask this question: How did we evolve some 4 million years ago?
How was it that we didn’t already die out? Way only NOW, since the introductions of many “foods” were we seeing our highest ever rates of obesity, sickness and death. Surely if this was the case when we were hunting and gathering everyday, we would not have survived this long? I mean after all aren’t we supposed to be so much more advanced, with our modern science and life saving machines?
How did man kind get it to such a BAD position? Sure we have almost 7 billion people populating this world but with more then HALF of the Australia population dying from health related disease alone not to mention the world, it would make perfect sense to think that maybe something that we are doing is NOT working!!
I looked around at what most people defined as health. Being a personal trainer I found patterns and certain thoughts about healthy living that seemed to sit well with people.
They tended to be, to be healthy you needed to avoid fats, eat salad mostly and consume grains and fruit in abundance.
Sounds right yeh? Well it didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t see how that if at least the large majority of people were attempting this and yet there still was NO SHIFT in the right direction there still was something missing.
I moved on from this because it was frustrating to hear so many of the same views and opinions but also see such a HUGE rate of health related disease.
I was once told by a teacher of mine, that if what you’re doing is not working, do the complete opposite and see how you go. So this is what I basically did. I started to look at FAT seeing as people were constantly told that fats would kill them by hardening their arteries giving them all heart attacks. I wasn’t convinced
This already for me was hard to believe seeing as when I think evolution, I think animal meats and it seemed to make us capable of getting to this point but all of a sudden meat from quality animals was THE ENEMY…
So I looked into good quality meats. What is good quality… well it is meats raised on diets that were native to them. Stuff they were designed to consume. Unlike us they don’t have the ability to make up new foods, they had to eat what was given to them from Mother Nature and do the best they could.
When eating meats the best kind is clearly, pasture raised.
So back to my point, I was being told to avoid meats, but what was I avoiding?
A little research found me this: The TEN top facts I have came across.
1. Cancer eats sugar, and sugar provokes cancer growth in the human body. So it would make sense to eat less sugar (carbs) and slightly higher fat and protein from quality sources such as grass fed beef and free range chickens?
2. The human body can not absorb minerals without the presence of fats.
Violent death and murder rates along with suicide correlates with people on a low fat diet by more then 4 times that of people eating higher fat diets. Pretty interesting, fats balance hormones, out of control hormones tend to lead to depression and suicide. Begs the question that if we feed someone who is depressed more quality fats instead of anti-depressants (band-aid) would that help them more??
3. Fats regulate our hormones. Possible that all hormonal dysfunction can be eased, helped or cured if we were to balance our quality fat intake?
4. Fats and cholesterol help construct the integrity of all cells without them your hard tissues turn soft and your soft tissues turn hard. It is well known that the people with the lowest cholesterol readings are people suffering from cancer.
5. The brain is almost 80% fat and the brain actually runs pretty low on carbohydrates. Any more then a teaspoon of sugar in the blood will invoke a emergency within the body. Our pancreases will secrete large amounts of insulin to shuttle the excess sugar out of the blood and into our cells. Yes eating lots of FRUIT or natural sugars of any kind will have the same reaction!
6. The heart is surrounded by lots of saturated fat, as this is what it draws on in time of need. Constantly stressing the heart to elongated bouts of physical activity has a stressful response on our bodies. The heart has to then protect its self as it’s constantly being overworked. Hence why I find it more realistic to train for less then 45 mins 4 times per week with varied work intensity. Stress in high amounts no matter what it is, is generally bad.
7. Our bodies will not effectively incorporated calcium into our muscle tissue and bone structure with out the presence of fat. So sure you consume calcium from leafy green vegetable but are you eating enough saturated fats to help assimilate this and obtain any benefit from the consumption?
8. Fats attract toxins, without fats, our bodies will be damaged by the horrendous toxic environment we live in each day. It’s fair to say that without fats to attract these toxins we would could expect more muscle and organ damage. Not cool.
9. We have essential FATS, which in case you missed it are ESSENTIAL. Essential for what you might ask??… well, LIFE… pretty essential.. There are NO essential carbohydrates.
10. I would be sicker more then normal if I didn’t consume fats in my diet. They actually enhance our immune system. Pretty important for the elderly and young in particular.
Again, this is the information that I came across and have decided is right for me. As a individual who is responsible for my own health. People should also OWN their health choices. After all we are in this mess because we just recited information we heard in school or on government funded advertising.
It’s your turn to stand up and ask yourself, ‘is what I’m doing good for me’ or is it good for someone else/someone company? You be the ultimate judge. We are in control of what we DO each and every day. Think about what you support with your purchase in the form of health, money, humanity and our environment.
In health and happiness,
Shane Richards
Shane, looking at the picture of the steak you have shown. Would you trim the ecxess fat from the edge? and only leave the marbelling?
ReplyDeleteIf I cooked it, I would and cook it on the "gorilla" to allow the excess to drip through.
Hey browney,
ReplyDeleteI wrote a response to this but it didn't post...
Anyway i'll keep it brief.
If the steak you were eating was raised in a feed lot and fed food it was not designed to eat (grain) then yes, I would cut the fat and most likely avoid eating the meat all together.
If the beef was raised on pasture by farmers who were focused on raising healthy cows then I would eat as much of the fat as I could get my hands on.
In regards to cooking, again if it was grain fed on a feed lot I would cook it through and cut the fat as fats attract toxins and in an unhealthy animal such as one raised on a feed lot I would avoid the fats because it would be full of that animals sickness(toxins).
However, if it were grass fed/finished. I would either cook it slow under 90 degrees for longer hours (4 or more) or sear it on a hot pan for a minute or so then consume with added butter and avocado if it was lean cut.
Hope this helps mate.
Love that you're asking questions!!
I suggest you also get your hands on a book called Primal Body, Primal Mind or Good Calories Bad Calories. Some great reading.
Thanks Mate will look up the books :)
ReplyDelete