Today's nutrional reading is "The fatburn fix" by Dr Catherine Shanahan. Again, this is a book (published 2020?) that is
about preventing metabolic disease. Apart from the usual enemy, sugar, Dr
Shanahan writes again and again that a major problem is the vegetable fats
that we eat. The Americocentric view is also very much apparent in this book.
I quote:
Today’s farms are mostly monoculture, growing a single crop, and instead
of getting our fats mostly from animals, we get them mostly from plants.
That wouldn’t be such a health problem if the North American climate was
different and we could grow enough olives, avocados, and coconuts—all
excellent sources of fats our body can use for energy. Unfortunately,
we don’t have the land to grow enough of those kinds of
warm-weather-loving trees. What we can grow throughout North America are
hardy annuals like corn, soy, and canola. The problem with growing so much
of these crops is that we’re now eating more, exposing ourselves to
massive quantities of polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are very
different from the fats in olives, avocados, and coconuts.
I was about to write that I have yet to see the words "olive" or "olive oil"
in this book, but here they are, accompanied by avocados (that I can't eat
because of their high potassium level but I never liked them whenever I tried to eat
some). Olive oil is technically a monounsaturated fat, although the
wiki page
says that it's 'only' 73% monounsaturated, with another 14% saturated and 11%
polyunsaturated.
Coconut oil
is 82.5% saturated; the standard recommendation is not to eat this oil, but as
'The fatburn fix' is as much about going against standard advice as it is
about eating saturated fat, Dr Shanahan approves of this oil. Marketing of coconut oil has created the inaccurate belief that it is a
"healthy food". Instead, studies have found that coconut oil consumption has
health effects similar to those of other unhealthy fats, including butter,
beef fat, and palm oil. Coconut oil contains a high amount of lauric acid, a
saturated fat that raises total blood cholesterol levels by increasing the
amounts of both high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and low-density
lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (wiki).
This reminds me of a scene towards the beginning of Woody Allen's "Sleeper", in which scientists 200 years from now (or rather, as the film was from
1973, now it's only 150 years in the future) say "You mean there was no deep
fat? No steak or cream pies or ... hot fudge? Those were thought to be
unhealthy ... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true." Who
knows?
I still haven't got to the eating recommendations of the book so I can't
comment on them, but I can guess what some of them will be. My problem will be
how to adjust my diet to apply these recommendations, whilst still aiming for
a low potassium diet. I have my appointment with the Health Fund's dietician
in another week; although I'll listen to what s/he says, I'm not sure yet how
I will react - nod then ignore, or argue. Of course, the dietician may be
enlightened, in which case the appointment will be fruitful. The same
holds for the nutrition courses; I voiced this worry previously.
This day in history:
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 42 | Schizophrenia and insomnia | MIDI, Van der Graaf Generator, Bar mitzva, Insomnia | |
| 377 | Locarno log (3) | Holiday, Italy, Switzerland | |
| 875 | New lyrics | Personal, Song writing | |
| 1156 | DBA update | DBA | |
| 1238 | Changes in the music room | Musical instruments | |
| 1404 | Relative date fields | Programming, Delphi |
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