Nourishing Your Body, Renewing Your Life
Welcome to Your Renewable Life
The majority of people today eat a diet low in fat or high in rancid or hydrogenated fats. On a cellular level, why is a low-fat (or “poor fat”) diet detrimental to health?
High-quality fats are essential to a healthy diet. Not only for nutrient absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K but also for optimal health of your cells. The cell membrane is made up of fatty acids that form the lipid bilayer. This membrane defines the boundaries of the cell, controls what goes into and out of the cells, and keeps the cell’s components protected.
This all sounds important but how does this work in your daily life? How do you navigate this good fat/bad fat discussion?
If you’ve followed a low-fat diet for a period of time, you probably feel like you’ve followed a nutritious diet and have treated your body well. But without adequate fat, you are likely deficient in fat-soluble vitamins that are crucial to your current and future vitality. This can show up in many ways, like poor night vision, tired muscles, foggy thinking, and much more.
Likewise, if you haven’t paid much attention to your nutrition and have followed the Standard American Diet for much of your life, these little cells that make YOU are stressing pretty bad. Without ample high-quality fat, your cells are not getting a very necessary component to thrive. Before explaining where to find high-quality fats, let’s bring light to the dangerous ones.
Back away from the grocery shelf
Bad fats like hydrogenated, highly processed vegetable oils and/or rancid oils (which the vast majority of the oils on your grocery shelf are) are subpar foreign substances mimicking fuel for your cells. Even if the label says it is “healthy” odds are it’s not. You see, most healthy plant-based oils have been subject to high heat and solvents (sounds scary, huh?) during the refining process. These delicate, light-sensitive oils are then placed in plastic bottles to sit on a shelf for months or longer. Each of these factors: processing, time, and storage method contribute to the oils becoming rancid (Eww!) If by chance, you bought a good bottle of quality oil, you must also take care to not overheat it yourself, which is rather easy to do in a Teflon skillet with the gas burner on High.
Rather than nourishing your cells in a bath of fatty acids, these common cooking oils are causing much more harm than good. These fats create free radicals that are highly reactive molecules with an unpaired electron in the outer shell. These free radicals cause cell damage in the form of inflammation and set you up for chronic illnesses and conditions such as depression, dementia, obesity, chronic pain, and a host of other conditions that have you reaching for drugs to manage.
What are the good fats that nourish healthy cells?
I prefer whole food plant sources and organic, grass-fed, grass-finished, minimally processed animal fats.
Some plant sources:
- Olives
- Avocado
- Coconut (a healthy, saturated fat)
- Nuts and seeds (in their whole, raw form, or immediately after grinding, blending or other processing)
Some animal sources (only ethically raised, organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised. This makes a BIG difference in animal sources being good fat versus bad fat!)
- Beef, chicken, pork, duck, sheep, lamb, wild game meat
- Organ meat of the above
- Tallow, lard, duck fat
- Ghee or Butter
- Cream
The listings above are not exhaustive but serve as a starting point for a few fats that will work for any tastes or health needs. Now, what fat are you going to eat next? Your cells are hungry and waiting!
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