In my quest to be healthier and lose weight, I cut some fats from my diet, but I added healthy fats. For years we have been told that fat is unhealthy. But we shouldn’t believe everything we’re told.
Personally, I never jumped on the low-fat bandwagon. It didn’t make sense to me. Plus, low-fat food didn’t taste good and eating fat didn’t cause me to gain weight. So I ate it.
In recent years I have learned more about fat. I’ve learned that saturated fat isn’t bad for you, and that like other foods, highly refined oil is not better than natural, minimally processes oil.
Now, I mostly cook with coconut oil
and use olive oil on salads. Over the past year I have quit using refined oils such as corn and canola oil, though I do occasionally use it to make carrot cake for a birthday.
I consume plenty of healthy fats including coconut oil, eggs (yolks are a fat source), nuts, and avocados, and I don’t shy away from animal fat, particularly fat from grass fed/pastured animals. Since I have cut a lot of carbs from my diet and often do intermittent fasting, my body needs fat for energy among other things.
Some of you may be wondering about cholesterol. As I mentioned before, my triglycerides dropped quite a bit and they weren’t high to begin with. My good cholesterol also went up.
Rather than trying to tell you what other people say about fat, I’m going to link to a few resources. I certainly don’t have all the information myself, and I’m not trying to give advice. I’m sharing what has worked for me, and increasing healthy fats in my diet is one of those things.
- Healthy Fat Guidelines & The Truth About Saturated Fat
- The Many Roles of Saturated Fats
- 10 Evidence Based Benefits of Coconut Oil
- What Oil Should You be Cooking With, and Which Should You Avoid?
Other Posts in This Series
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Linda, Too bad doctors do not know all this – so few know anything at all about nutrition or preventive diets. I have never been on the low-fat bandwagon either and have always had a high fat diet and never been overweight. You mentioned using canola oil for a carrot cake. I use olive oil in all my cake recipes and it does not alter the taste in a negative way. I used coconut oil in a chocolate cake and it was dry and not as flavorful as when I used olive oil. I also make a peanut butter cake with basic chocolate buttercream frosting and use olive oil – it is a basic yellow cake with lots of peanut butter added – very good! Just keying this I am now craving cake and will try to make one over the weekend. Got to get fat into the diet. . . Sugar is much worse in any form – even honey is still sugar – Sad truth.
Terri, that’s interesting about using olive oil. I would not have thought of that. I have been wanting to try coconut oil in the carrot cake, but I never want to experiment when it’s someone’s birthday cake. I don’t seem to make it any other time. The peanut butter cake sounds wonderful!
Great post, Linda. Even if not focused on losing weight, eating good fats make sense. Like Terri, I love using olive oil in cakes and brownies. Coconut oil is often too light for me in recipes, even when the coconut flavoring is not a concern. Sometimes I use light olive oil if olive oil or EVOO would be too strong, like in my pound cake. Works great.
Shirley