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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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