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Take this quiz and see how you well you do at picking the healthier fats. What choice would you make in each pairing below?

a) stick margarine
b) butter

a) lard
b) shortening

a) coconut oil
b) grape-seed oil

a) olive oil
b) canola oil

a) peanut oil
b) palm oil

a) tub margarine
b) butter

a) 35% cream
b) creamer

a) corn oil
b) beef fat

a) fish oil
b) soy oil

If you picked butter, lard, coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil, butter, cream, beef fat and fish oil, congratulations, you know how to choose the healthier options!  Margarine, shortening and creamer are examples of trans-fats and should be avoided at all costs, as study after study shows how dangerous trans-fats are to our cardiovascular system, even in very small amounts. The most recent study discussed at the American Heart Association conference this past week suggested that trans fats increase the risk of stroke by 30% in post-menopausal women. When we hear the phrase "artery clogging", we should think immediately of trans fats, and not lump saturated fats in there as well. These are completely different fats that act very differently in the body, trans fats being extremely destructive, and saturated fats being vital for our survival. I'm not suggesting we need to eat large amounts of saturated fats to be healthy – just that we need not fear them and go out of our way to avoid them.  They havean important role to play
in a healthy diet.

Tub margarine often advertises that it has 0 trans-fats, but that is because food manufacturers are allowed to label it as such if the amount per serving is less than 0.5 grams. This does not mean they have no trans fats, and if one eats a lot of margarine and other products with such a label the trans fats can add up. Furthermore, the polyunsaturated oils in the margarines have to be altered somehow to solidify them, and if they are not hydrogenated, they are interesterified, which does not guarantee that they are healthy.

Shortening replaced lard (pig fat) in baked goods when the erroneous fear of saturated fats became the norm, and currently baked goods such as pastries, donuts, muffins, cookies, crackers, pie crusts and pizza dough contain trans fats much more often than not. Unless you bake your own and can control the ingredients, trans fats (along with the flour and sugar) in these products makes for a powerful health reason to not to buy and eat them. Look at the ingredient list, and if you see a "partially hydrogenated" or "hydrogenated" plant oil, that is a trans fat. If your pantry contains shortening, throw it out and buy lard for your baking needs. Yes, you can still find it in the grocery store, and it is a MUCH healthier choice.

We have known for at least 20 years that trans fats are deadly. Why have governments not yet banned them from the food supply considering the amount of money they would save in health-care spending? Another example of how governments give in to food-manufacturing lobbies rather than do what should be done for the health of their populations.

TThe other common misunderstanding with respect to fats and oils involves polyunsaturated omega 6 plant oils, which are widely believed to be healthy despite the growing evidence of systemic inflammation that they cause in the body. Most of the devastating diseases that are affecting us today have a large inflammatory component, and the dramatic increase in plant oil consumption since 1910 parallels the dramatic increase in diseases like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Before 1910 plant oils other than olive, coconut and palm oils did not exist, and our chronic disease rates were very low. Eating plant/seed oils like canola, safflower, soy, corn, grape seed, peanut, cotton seed oil and any foods that contain them is a very unhealthy practice in my opinion.

Dr. Lands said in his presentation at a recent NIH conference on omega 3 and omega 6 fats (scroll to minute 12 to see the start of the presentation) that "People that have more than half of their highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) as omega 6 HUFA, they really have a very high incidence of cardiovascular death. Those that have less than half of their omega 6 HUFA in their membrane phospholipids predominantly, they really have low incidence of death." (Minute 26 in presentation). Dr. Lands suggested that one should think of these omega 6 plant oils as "insurgents" in the body, and omega 3 fatty acids as the "armour" to protect against "the insurgents". Eating sea foods which contain lots of omega 3s, or fish/krill oils do help protect the body from the systemic inflammation the omega 6 fats cause, but it makes more sense to stop eating the insurgents in the first place. All the same, the more omega 6 one consumes, the more omega 3 one needs to counteract the damage of the omega 6. So if one eats a salad dressing made with canola or soy oil, or food cooked in a vegetable oil, take some extra fish or krill oil as protection. Walnuts are considered to be a high omega 3 nut, but the amount of omega 6 in walnuts is 5X higher than the amount of omega 3, so trying to use walnuts to improve one's omega 3/6 ratio won't work, even though it has a much better ratio than any other nut.

Notice that all the fats and oils listed in the quiz above as unhealthy for us were all invented in the last 100 years. Stick to fats that we have been eating for thousands of years and avoid the newly invented fats in order to stay healthy.

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Related Tips:
Saturated fat, the misunderstood nutrient
Vegetable oils, friend or foe?
Oils and fats – the good, the bad and the ugly
Essential fats: omega 3 to omega 6 ratio
Food-Guide Fallacy

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Frequently hip and sacroiliac joint pain can be the result of toes that don’t extend enough which causes a flat-footed walk, resulting in the pelvis tilting forward, and over-use of the hipflexors in walking, unlocking the SI joint.

I wrote a post a couple of years ago about how hip pain and SI joint pain can be the result of a pelvis that is tilted forward forcing a very effortful walk, and an unhappy wearing of the hip socket.

Through working with people in bare feet, I’ve recently noticed a common pattern in people with SI joint and hip pain – many have very poor flexibility and openness in the feet and toes, and I think it is at least possible if not quite likely that this lack of toe flexibility is forcing poor walking mechanics and a poor pelvic position, leading to SI joint and/or hip pain.

While kneeling on the floor, toe pads down, one should be able to easily put full weight through the toes by sitting on one’s heels. The toe fold should be about 90 degrees. One should be able to control the muscles of the toes, spreading them all apart.

Also the tops of our feet and ankles should be open enough to be able to tolerate kneeling and sitting back on one’s heels. Better yet, one should be able to grab the floor with the tops of the toes, pulling the toes forward until the ankles are flexed to about 90 degrees and then sit back on the heels with the toes turned under. Quite a painful experience for most of us!

In standing, when the feet are on the floor, all the pads of the toes should be in good contact with the floor. Because we tend to spend most of our life in shoes, many times shoes with very inflexible soles, it is not surprising that we lose foot and toe flexibility.

In walking, all the toes should be in contact with the ground at push-off, lightly pushing the body forward just before the swing phase of gait. This activates all the muscles in the back of the leg in sequence, starting with the toe flexors, then the calf muscles, followed by the hamstrings.

After the toe push, the leg swing should be quite passive with the leg feeling like it is hanging from the hip socket and swinging like a pendulum. If the toes are not in contact with the floor or there is a lack of flexibility in the toes making it impossible to use them to push, gait is changed completely.

With the toes are taken out of the equation, the walker is less able to push and is therefore more inclined to move the leg forward from the hip joint instead by using the hipflexors and the quads, making the swing phase of gait active and effortful.

Once this manner of walking becomes a habit, the hipflexors and quadriceps tighten and shorten which tilts the pelvis forward, changing the angle of force through the hip joint and making it impossible to dangle the leg from the socket during the swing phase.

So instead of a welcome period of decompression in the hip socket every time the foot is off the ground, the leg is compressed into the joint continually because the hipflexors are pulling the leg bone into the socket during the swing phase, and the leg bone is pushing up into the socket during the stance phase.

This constant pressure can cause the joint to wear, especially since the pelvis is tilted over the leg putting the force through a less ideal part of the joint.

Sacroiliac problems can also result from a lack of toe push because the when there is little to no activation of the hamstrings (back of the thigh), there is little to no tension put through the sacrotuberus ligament which is important to SI joint stability.

Combine this lack posterior stability with overly active hipflexors and quads from a pelvis that is overly tilted forward, and the SI joint is quite likely to unlock, causing pain and dysfunction.

Furthermore, an anteriorly rotated pelvis makes it nearly impossible to have a proper heel strike, causing the foot to land almost flat. One is supposed to hit the ground with the back of the heel, then roll over the foot and push off the toes keeping the back line engaged and the SI joint stable throughout the entire stance phase.

A flat-footed landing shortens the stride necessitating the hipflexors to move the leg creating a shuffling look to gait, and makes it harder to find the toes for push-off. The lack of toe off combined with the lack of heel strike both feed into each other and potentially making gait worse and worse over time as the pelvis is pulled further into anterior rotation (think of the pelvis as a bucket pouring water out the front).

In the past I’ve recommended hipflexor and quadricep stretches (and low back stretches for those stuck in lumbar extension) which is definitely very important, but if the toes and ankles are inflexible I’m not convinced the correct pelvis position can be maintained and proper gait restored.

So I would add calf stretches (particularly the straight-leg calf stretch or gastrocnemius) and the toe stretches described above. Toe spreaders are a great idea – the kind used to put toe polish on are perfect to start. Once they are no longer painful to wear and walk with, one can graduate to "intermediate" toe spreaders, and then finally to “advanced” toe spreaders, which will really help open the feet.

Also rolling the bottom of the foot on a tennis ball or racquet ball can stretch and loosen the plantar fascia. Strengthening glute medius posterior so the opposite hip joint can be held high enough to allow the leg to passively swing is very important as well.

Once the appropriate muscles are loose enough to make it possible to hold the pelvis in the correct position the hard work begins, as one must teach the brain a different way of walking.

Regularly concentrating on the landing on the back of the heel, then rolling over the foot and pushing off the toes, along with feeling the swing leg hang from the hip socket is what will do it.

When getting up from the floor from a kneeling position, one has two choices. One can do a “split squat” where the weight stays evenly split between the two feet. In this case, the back toes, both ankles, both knees and the forward hip should form a 90 degree angle, with the trunk being vertical. One pushes down evenly through the front foot and the back toes to move to a standing position. Flexible toes are needed to tolerate the weight going through them.

The usual method of getting up from the floor from a kneeling position is to transfer the weight to the forward foot, and step forward. The knee needs to come in front of the toe, and the ankle must be passive for this to happen. When there is not enough calf flexibility, the heel will have to come up a bit. This is fine as long as the ankle is soft, the muscles at the front of the lower leg are not activated, and the foot is puddled on the floor.

Frequently people bend at the hip to try to get the weight over the forward foot, rather than staying tall at the hip and bringing the knee and pelvis forward. Keeping the back knee and the front foot quite close together can allow the transition to weight bearing through the front foot to happen more easily. The back toes, as long as they are flexible enough, can help by pushing the body forward.

If you want to subscribe or search for other posts by title or by topic, go to www.wellnesstips.ca.

Related Tips:
Walking, sacroiliac joint dysfunction and hip pain
S-T-R-E-T-C-H and feel better
Posture, leg-length discrepancies, musculoskeletal pain and organ function
Pain and stabilizer vs mover muscles

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