Fats and Oils
Fats and oils are an
important part of any well designed dietary plan. A good working
understanding of just what they are and how they work is an essential part of
any well conceived diet. Fats and oils, certainly as much and perhaps more
than any other single dietary component, directly impact our health in profound
ways.
The difference between fats and oils is in their melting point.
Fats tend to be solids at room temperature; oils tend to be liquid at room
temperature. To turn a fat into an oil, merely raise its temperature above
its melting point. If the temperature continues to increase beyond the
melting point to the point where some smoke becomes evident, the molecular
structure of the oils will change and a number of toxic molecular isomers will
be produced in the oil. If the oil is allowed to cool or to
re-solidify, the toxic products will remain. The temperatures where this
damage is done to our fats and oils is about half the temperatures reached in
the refining and Hydrogenation processes. Thus, these processes not only
destroy all of the nutritional value of our fats and oils but they may also be
causing the formation of these toxic molecular isomers. These refined
and/or Hydrogenated fats and oils are characterized by an extraordinarily long
shelf life; some are virtually unspoilable.
Naturally occurring fats and oils are Triglycerides. Triglycerides
consist of three fatty acids bound to a Glycerol backbone. Each fatty acid
consists of a Carbon-Hydrogen chain with a Carboxyl group at the end that is
attached to the Glycerol molecule. The other end is typically terminated
with a Hydrogen bond. Unless changed chemically, by artificial technology,
this is the natural form which we find in the fats and oils that are
nutritionally useful. The length of the fatty acid chain as well as its
configuration and relative degree of saturation determine how the fatty acid
will act within our body. Some fatty acids are vitally necessary to life
processes; some are poisons.
Fatty acids are also found in other molecules besides Triglycerides. For
example Phospholipids have two fatty acids and a Phosphorus molecule attached to
the Glycerol backbone. Phospholipids too, play an important role in our
cellular health.
Understanding Triglycerides is an important issue that is complicated by a great
deal of pseudo science that is specifically designed to confuse and mislead. In addition to the Triglycerides that we eat in the form of fats and oils, we
also have Triglycerides formed, within our bodies, from the sugars and starches
that we eat. Much of this Triglyceride load is deposited in our adipose (fat)
cells when we eat too much fat and sugar and some of us become obese. Some
of these Triglycerides are broken down into their fatty acids which are then
used in cell repair.
The saturated fat Triglycerides circulate in the blood stream before finding a
home in our Adipose cells (fat cells). They tend to be sticky instead of
slippery and so contribute to the high incidence of Strokes and Atherosclerosis
associated with high levels of Triglycerides in the blood. They make the
blood viscosity thicker and cause the Platelets to tend to stick together.
They are also an essential step in the chain of events that cause obesity.
All dietary fatty acids may be divided into two categories: Saturated and
Unsaturated. The Unsaturated fats and oils differ from each other in their
configuration and in their degree of unsaturation. Both types of fatty
acids are produced by the the animal and by the vegetable kingdoms, although
some are predominately found in animal sources and some are predominately found
in vegetable sources. Most concentrated vegetable sources are seeds and
nuts; most animal sources are animal body fat. Unrefined fish oils are
good
sources of dietary fats; unrefined Flax seed oil, Hemp seed oil and
several others are good concentrated vegetable sources oils.
Saturated fats are characterized by having all of the possible molecular
locations for a Hydrogen bond filled. Thus, at the moludular level, there
is no molecular difference between a saturated vegetable fat or a saturated
animal fat of the same chain length. There also is no molecular difference
between a natural and an artificial saturated fat of the same chain length.
Configuration is not an issue because when all of the bonds are filled there is
only one configuration possible. As the length of the fatty acid chain
lengthens the melting point of the fat increases. Thus fats which are
solid at room temperature have longer chain lengths than fats which are liquid
at room temperatures. Our bodies can readily process short and medium
chain fats; but, it processes longer chain fats with greater difficulty.
However, with animal sources, vegetable sources and even with artificially made
dietary sources, single individual fat molecules are never found. We must
always deal with mixtures of many different fat and oil molecules in the fats
and oils that we consume. All naturally occurring fats and oils are
mixtures of long and short chain saturated fats and mixtures of mono and poly
unsaturated fats. Naturally occurring trans-isomers are relatively rare and do not occur in sufficient abundance to
create a health hazard. However if fats and oils are refined, heated or
Hydrogenated, the mixtures are then made to also include a huge thermodynamic
distribution of highly toxic isomers, including the notorious trans-isomer,
along with partially destroyed molecular fragments, and other toxic products.
All fats and oils differ from each other in the length of the Carbon-Hydrogen
chain; however, unsaturated fats and oils also differ from each other, and from
saturated fats, in that they have one or more vacant Hydrogen sites along their
chain. These unfilled Hydrogen binding sites give the unsaturated fats and
oils a variety of geometries at the molecular level. Some of these
geometries, that occur naturally in nature, are
designed so that our metabolism can readily handle them, in fact, it needs them.
Certain unsaturated oils directly constitute an important
building block in all of the trillions of cells in our body, and
they cannot be obtained by our body except from our food supply. In
addition, our enzyme systems use unsaturated fats as building blocks to
construct a wide variety of needed biochemicals.
Short and medium chain length saturated animal fats are a very nutritious food
staple and have been for thousands of years. They provide nine calories
per gram and are "good keepers"; in the days before refrigeration, this
"keeping" quality was very important. It meant that the fat would not spoil or
go rancid easily at room temperature. Our body uses saturated fats as a
highly concentrated energy source when carbohydrates not plentiful. Much
of the disease we experience today is the result of a failure of our systems to
properly and safely metabolize fats and oils. Rather than use them for the
highly concentrated energy source that they are, our body uses them in cell
repair because they the correct fats and oils are not in our diet. This is now identified
as a major factor in Hyperinsulinemia.
Cholesterol is a fatty substance that is manufactured by our liver. It is
an extremely important building block for many of our vital functions including
our brains, eyes, nervous systems and sexual apparatus (both varieties).
About 85% of the Cholesterol circulating in our bodies is made by the liver.
We
have a Cholesterol control mechanism in our bodies that operates to stabilize
Cholesterol at the circulating level that we find. Cholesterol is also
contained in some of the foods that we eat. If we try to reduce our
circulating Cholesterol by excluding high Cholesterol foods from our diet, our
liver simply makes more Cholesterol in an attempt to maintain a homeostasis
(normal level) of Cholesterol in our blood stream. Controlling circulating
Cholesterol through diet is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon; it
sounds like a good pop science theory but it is really not very effective.
The best way to reduce Cholesterol levels to normal is to cure
the underlying Hyperinsulinemia. This entails repairing the Automatic
Cholesterol Control System which regulates our Cholesterol homeostasis.
This repair process requires stabilizing our blood Insulin and Glucose levels
and restoring our entire endocrine system to proper balance. This follows
automatically when we stop consuming dangerous, damaged fats and oils and
restore other needed nutrition to our diet.
Cholesterol, being a fat, does not dissolve in the blood stream which is mostly
water. In order to be transported around in the blood, it must be carried
by a Lipoprotein carrier which has an affinity for water. When it is being
carried from the liver to the rest of the body, the Lipoprotein involved is
LDL
(low density Lipoprotein). When Cholesterol is being carried from the body
back to the liver for recycling, the carrier is HDL (high density Lipoprotein).
Thus LDL which distributes Cholesterol throughout the body came to be known as
the "bad" Cholesterol and HDL which removes it from circulation came to be known
as the "good" Cholesterol. Hyperinsulinemia is characterized by a reduction in
the HDL fraction and an increase in the LDL fraction. Clearly this sort of phony
science that characterizes one essential Lipoprotein as "good" and another as
"bad" is the sort that comes from marketing and sales departments; certainly it
does not originate in reputable scientific laboratories.
Besides being a most important building block in many of our bodily functions,
Cholesterol is one of the important components of the plaque that occludes our
arteries. It is for this reason that it has attracted notice. Our diseased
state is due to the fact that the normal levels of circulating Cholesterol have
been elevated by Hyperinsulinemia. In fact, this elevated level of
Cholesterol is often one of the early warning signs that we are becoming
Hyperinsulinemic. An appropriate way to reduce Cholesterol is to cure the
underlying Hyperinsulinemia.
With the advent of artificial fats and oils and Hydrogenated and Refined
products in the 1920's (see history), the healthy unsaturated oils started
to disappear from our dietary food chain and were replaced by a large number of
toxic isomers. These toxic isomers are just different geometries of the
unsaturated oil molecules many of which were, before processing, healthy for
consumption. Long term consumption of some of these toxic isomers, notably the
trans-isomer, has been identified with many, if not most, of the chronic disease
symptoms. Of even greater importance, the
complete removal of some of the healthier oils from our diet has been found
to be causal in many of our widespread degenerative diseases including Hyperinsulinemia.
Much of this came about because of standardized refining processes that were
introduced into the oils manufacturing business. The new rapid high
temperature extraction techniques, introduced in the 1920's lowered the retail
price of oil, gave it a pure pristine appearance when packaged in a transparent
bottle, gave it a uniform clarity, gave it an almost uniform taste, and
destroyed the healthy fatty acids that rapidly spoiled at room temperature.
It is the high temperatures used in the refining process that ruins even
previously good oils. If we find a good oil and refrigerate it, it is
still easy to destroy its nutritional qualities when we cook with it by heating
it to the point where it smokes. When delicate oils are heated,
either in cooking or refining, the oil undergoes irreversible changes; the
original molecular
configuration is destroyed and many toxic isomers are generated, including the
notorious trans-isomer. All of the antioxidents, previously a part of the
unrefined oil are destroyed. Much of the oil's original flavor is lost and it
tastes like a generic oil.
When cooking with fats and oils it is important to do so in a manner that does
not destroy them. Use only butter, Coconut oil and animal fat for cooking.
These contain a higher proportion of saturated fat and thus are not destroyed as
easily at cooking temperatures. Never consume any deep fried foods; they
are all universally soaked with toxic isomers. If you cook with an oil
like olive oil, be sure to mix some water with it to prevent the oil from
getting too hot. Remember that if the oil starts to smoke it is too hot
and it
is being destroyed.
An important consideration about these edible oils is a widespread fraudulent
advertising technique that enables the oils manufacturer to sell known toxic
oils to the unsuspecting public without breaking the law. Many refined
vegetable oils are advertised as monounsaturated or as polyunsaturated in order
to confuse the purchaser. Indeed, if these oils were the natural isomer, they
would be desirable oils from a health standpoint. However, naturally
occurring
oils are inherently unstable and will go rancid quite rapidly in a transparent
bottle on a room temperature grocery store shelf; their shelf life is on the
order of ten hours or sometimes less. The trans-isomer of these oils has a
much longer room temperature shelf life. There is no law to require the
oils manufacturer, or the store, to advise the consumer that these "monounsaturates"
and "polyunsaturates" are trans-isomers and other toxic byproducts that result
from the destruction of the good edible oils that they think they are getting.
Since no law exists to keep their claims honest, oils manufacturers feel free to
deceive with dishonest claims that few consumers understand. In some circles
this is not considered to be fraud.