Fats - Friends & Foes

This month I have been blogging about cancer prevention, and in the past 48 hrs have shared foods to eat and foods to avoid. There is a group of foods that warrants its own posting – something we consume daily in one form or another. That being…FAT.
Let’s start by making a recommendation of the GOOD FATS, the friendly fats, you should have in your kitchen…
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Coconut Oil
• CLA
EVOO. Here’s a bit of interesting trivia for you…people on the island of Crete consume huge amounts of extra virgin olive oil. In addition, they have one of the highest populations in all of Europe. Yet, they have the lowest lung cancer rates.
What’s going on? Isn’t that what you’re thinking? It went through my mind as well. As it turns out EVOO inhibits the HER-2/neugene. In essence, extra virgin olive oil has the same effects on cancer cells as the drug Herceptin, without the side effects or complications.
In regards to cooking with EVOO, adding a touch of turmeric to the pan when heating the oil for cooking will prevent free radicals from forming.
Coconut oil contains anti cancer flavonoids – a medium chain triglyceride (MCT). Dr. Blaylock recommends cancer patients take 1 T. per day, not only for its anti-cancer effects, but because it also has an anti weight loss effect. Often times it is recommended to cancer patients to eat bananas, however, because this fruit is packed with sugar it feeds the cancer cells. Other nutrients cancer patients can ingest to help prevent weight loss are Vitamin E, succinate and curcumin.
CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) dramatically reduces breast, colon and perhaps even prostrate cancer. It reduces inflammation, and literally melts away visceral fat, which is the fat around the abdomen that encases our vital organs and contributes to many diseases. An effective dose is 1,000 mg a day per Blaylock’s March 2007 Wellness Report. You can obtain CLA naturally from milk or meat from grass-fed cows, however, both are on the “do not” list with dairy being inflammatory and beef contributing to iron overdose.
FAT FOENumber one fat foe is Omega 6 oils. These include those we often see marketed as healthy, vegetable oils. I have blogged about Omega 6 before, but point blank – Americans get too much of this in our diets. It is highly inflammatory, and promotes the spread and invasion of cancers. Omega 6 fats can convert some types of cancers into a very aggressive variety. If you have cancer – avoid Omega 6 fats! Unfortunately it is found in just about all our processed foods. This is not to say Omega 6 is not necessary in our body, it is, but for healthy maintenance the ratio of Omega 3 to 6 is supposed to be 4 or 6 to 1, but in the typical American diet wet get a ratio of 6-10 Omega 6s to one Omega 3.
I would encourage you to pare down your kitchen pantry to utilize primarily EVOO and/or coconut oil. We primarily use EVOO in our home. When baking muffins did you know you can substitute vegetable oil for applesauce - even exchange? Add turmeric to EVOO when pan searing. For baking use coconut oil (which comes in a jar, with the viscosity of lard), or organic butter from grass fed cows – a little good fat butter is better than choosing canola.

To your health,

Rita S.