I eat fat! I eat the crispy skin off my pastured-raised roasted chicken. I eat fatty, juicy, pasture-finished grilled hamburgers. I eat raw seeds & nuts, and toasted seeds & nuts. My salads are thoroughly covered in organic olive oil dressing. Every vegetable I sauté, roast or grill is doused with olive oil, coconut oil or nitrate-free pastured-raised bacon fat.
I even take a tablespoon of coconut oil by mouth some days!
Wow! I must be the size of a barn…right?
No ma’am. I’m actually pretty lean. So…how can I eat fat and not get fat?! Almost seems counter intuitive, doesn’t it?
There are two schools of thought. One is outdated, and the other is based on research and clinical studies.
Fat is the Enemy
This theory once permeated culture. Back in the day…fat was forbidden! I pulled the skin off of my chicken and sadly discarded it. Salads had scant amounts of low-fat dressing. Grocery shopping consisted of looking for low-fat cheese and lean ground beef. When I ate bacon, the seemingly evil fat torn from the meat!
But I was still fat. Why?!
I filled up on carbs and sugar. Basically, I was starving yet over-ate. The carbs and sugar filled me up but I quickly burned through it because there was little nutritional value or staying power. Then I was hungry again. Sound familiar?
And worse, the carbs and sugar my body couldn’t immediately use, were stored as fat!
Fat isn’t the enemy. Actually no whole, real food made by God is the enemy. Our bodies may be confused or even damaged by some foods like peanuts or dairy. But that’s not because something is wrong with what God made. It means something is wrong with how we have taken what God made and tried to make it better. As if somehow, mankind could improve on it.
Fatty Truth
Here’s the truth. Natural fats are good for the brain, skin, cells, just about everything. Every cell in the human body is wrapped in a plasma membrane that holds all the stuff inside the cell together. It allows nutrients in and waste out. This membrane is made of fat!
Our skin is a fatty membrane that holds all of our stuff inside too! Nutrients in and waste out. From the smallest to the largest parts of our bodies, we need fat.
It’s not only skin and cells that need fat either. Vitamins require fat so our bodies can store them. These fat-soluble vitamins are: A, D, E and K.
Our brains use fat for fuel. They can use either glucose or fat. Fat however, is a cleaner burning fuel for our brains. In other words, the body has less to clean up. The brain also uses fat to transport information and is critically important for one side of your brain to communicate with the other.
Now brace yourself.
The human brain is 70% fat. Yep. We’re fatheads….and it’s okay!
Dangerous fatty, fat, fat
So we know that eating fat doesn’t make us fat. We know carbs and sugar, if not all used, converts to fat. But did you know that excess fat stores in the body can be dangerous?
Excess fat causes inflammation. Inflammation is the beginning of most diseases.
In addition, those big pockets of unnecessary fat start creating the estrogen hormones. It becomes its own organ. Ugh, creepy. That fat-produced estrogen then creates an imbalance. (Imagine what it’s doing to our husbands…)
Omegas
The human body needs roughly half omega-6 and half omega-3 intake to avoid inflammation. Fats are made of omegas in different ratios. For instance, soybean oil is half omega-6 but its omega-3 content is only 7%. That’s bad. Your cells are made of omega-3.
Pastured-raised meats are actually lower in fat than conventionally raised meat and have a healthy omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.
Chemically-derived vegetable oils are not healthy ratios, because they are unnaturally created. How much oil is really in a soybean? Whereas, fruit (avocado, olive oil) and nut oils are naturally made because they easily give off fat.
Digesting Fat
Lipase is the enzyme the body uses to breakdown and digest fat. Not everyone has adequate amounts of this enzyme. If you find that eating fat makes you feel unwell and produces symptoms, then consider taking a digestive enzyme. You can find them at health food stores.
Beyond the scope of this post, but still important, your gallbladder and liver help to digest fats. So if you find that eating fat and adding lipase enzyme doesn’t help your symptoms, go here and here to learn what to do next.
For more about fats and weight loss, click here.
The next time someone calls you a fathead, just say, “Thanks!” and know you’re healthier for it!
Excellent overview, my friend! I couldn’t agree more. A sad consequence of the fat free craze might be a rise in Alzheimer’s because, to your point, our brains need fat! I’ve seen it happen in my family…anecdotal I know, but studies have been emerging. I’ll take the fat, please.
So true! It’s a wonder we aren’t literally on a cellular level falling apart!
As always thank you for your encouragement. Love you Sister.
Right back atcha, sis! 😉
I know I’m super behind but I’m just now able to dig through some posts I had in the “READ LATER” file!! I love this – so helpful, thank you! I had a question regarding an older post about how you grind your own wheat. I have a VitaMix so I have the equipment, but where do you get the wheat? Do you get it locally? I live near a lot of farms so the grass fed meats is commonplace, but not sure anyone sells raw wheat… just wondered if that’s hard to come by?
Catch up with you soon – hope you’re surviving the heat – it’s sooo hot here, I figure it has to be there too! I guess it’s that time of the year…. ha!
Hey Lisa! So glad to “see” you here! I buy my grains from Bread Beckers. Though they are local, they have co-ops across the U.S. Go here and click on “join a co-op” http://www.breadbeckers.com. Just find your state! Once you get the hang of it, you can venture into fermentation of grains which breaks down the physic acid to make the nutrients a little more available.