It's been really hot here in Perth. Like, the kind of hot that makes you want to move down south....did I say that out loud? Ahem...
There's one thing I've been craving in this diabolical weather - Soft Serve. That evil stuff made from superheated vegetable oils, powdered milk, high fructose corn syrup and thickeners made from refined grains. EW
I believe strongly in cravings, however. And I have a theory that they are our best guide to health. I think the problem is that we usually misinterpret our cravings. It's easy to do. If your body says "Hey! Running low on salt here!" its easy to think "chippies....", which wouldn't happen if they didn't exist. So if our ancestors were in the same situation, say they needed a spot of protein, they wouldn't think "KFC..." they'd probably think "I think I'll cook a beef and kidney stew tonight". Get my drift?
So back to the soft serve. I believe that craving ice or ice cream or anything cold on a hot day is a clue that you're dehydrated. I tried this, but I still wanted that rich, sweet, cold, gooey combo of disgusting, salad bar soft serve. So I decided to make some! Before sticking the churned ice cream into the freezer, I had a few mouthfuls of the gooey, creamy mixture, and boy did it kill the cravings dead!
Decidedly more expensive than the cheap non-foods that come out of the machine at maccas, but this recipe will actually nourish you and your family, and it's a great way of eating your essential fats and fat soluble vitamins. I never heat my ice cream ingredients, and this ensures that the vitamins in the cream and yolks stay intact. Therefore these recipes are high in vitamins A, E and D and K, plus loads of other fat based goodies that will keep you well.
Basic vanilla ice cream recipe
2 cups raw cream
1/2 cup organic maple syrup or raw honey
4 biodynamic egg yolks (I buy cackleberries eggs)
1 tsp real gelatine (made from animal ingredients) dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water
vanilla paste to taste (I like a whole tbsp)
Allow the gelatin to cool a bit, then blitz everything in a blender, pour it into an ice cream maker and churn until it almost doubles in volume. Then freeze overnight in an airtight container.
I think an ice cream maker is a great investment if you're interested in keeping processed foods out of your family's bodies. Any equipment that allows you to use real foods to create treats is worthwhile, because there's nothing more detrimental to the cause than feeling deprived.
Another word on ice cream makers, don't buy an industrial sized machine! Get a small one that makes just enough for the family to have a small but satisfying serve each. Our bodies aren't equipped to handle super-size portions. Blame your ancestors.
Rose water and strawberry ripple ice cream
200g fresh strawberries
1 tsp rose water
2 cups raw cream
1/2 cup maple or raw honey
4 biodynamic egg yolks
1 tsp gelatin dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water
Puree strawberries and set aside. Blend the rest of the ingredients plus half of the strawberry puree, then churn in an ice cream maker. As you pour the churned ice cream into a container to freeze, swirl the remaining puree through to create a ripple.
You can use any fruit you like in these recipes. I've made banana honey and added half a cup of chopped nuts, fresh apricots would work, you could even get really creative and do stewed apples and cinnamon! Totally up to you. So have fun!
Showing posts with label bad fats vs good fats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad fats vs good fats. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Friday, June 8, 2012
which oil should I use? The healthy use of fats in food preparation
I love watching cooking shows on TV. I'm a fiend for food porn! I love watching the culinary artistry, being inspired by the food. I find it relaxing, and satisfying, in a bizzare way!
But there's one thing that annoys me, and it's not George's many and varied cliches on Masterchef! When a TV chef offers advice on cooking fats, my blood boils.
Some chefs happen also to be knowledgable in nutrition, like Dominique Rizzo, and I think she's fabulous. She offers great advice when she cooks on TV. During a recent Masterclass, however, in a segment on which oils to cook with, some advice was given which I strongly disagreed with, and which I'd like to take the time to correct.
The presenters essentially offered a few types of oils to use. They offered "good" olive oil, "ordinary" olive oil, grapeseed oil and sesame oil. There are so many more options than this!!
Olive oil:
To my mind there is only one kind, the "good" stuff. Extra virgin, cold pressed and organic. But I wouldn't put it in a hot pan, it would quickly become a bad fat and damaging to health. I drizzle it on a plate after serving food, or use it in salads.
Grapeseed:
The brand shown on the show was in a clear glass bottle. Any oil in clear glass or clear plastic is HYDROGENATED. This is an industrially processed oil, one step before margerine, which has been superheated and mixed with petrochemicals to give shelf life. All the beneficial properties that oil had have been destroyed and replaced by health wrecking properties. Pretend these don't exist.
Sesame oil:
This is a great oil for flash frying or stir frying, as are peanut, virgin coconut and virgin palm oils.
The fats I use most in the kitchen are butter, ghee and coconut oil. These are high in saturated fats and therefore have the advantage of being stable to temperature. This means that when you stick them in a hot pan they don't become poison. Bonus! I use ghee for Indian style cooking (obviously), coconut for Thai and Malay style food, and butter for European food. When I'm making Italian food I just drizzle olive oil over the plate after I've served it, as Matt Moran described, to give the flavor and the full benefits of the oil. Easy.
Using fats correctly, and libberally, is integral to good health. A high fat diet is a good diet, another fact TV chefs seem ignorant to. Fats are a food group essential to vitality. If we minimise fats such as nuts, avocado, egg yolks, fish, meats, butter and oils, we will have imbalanced hormones, blood sugar imbalance leading to weight gain, poor concentration, skin problems and even cholesterol problems.
I'm often asked about the cholesterol paradox. It's simple; it's just biochemically impossible for a high fat diet to cause high cholesterol. I'm not talking about damaged fats, by all means avoid those! The overwhelming evidence today shows that a diet high in refined foods is the culprit for all chronic illness, including cholesterol.
So if this information is news to you, restock your pantry with the good oils, ignore the bad and live healthily ever after! And never take nutrition advice from people without formal training!
But there's one thing that annoys me, and it's not George's many and varied cliches on Masterchef! When a TV chef offers advice on cooking fats, my blood boils.
Some chefs happen also to be knowledgable in nutrition, like Dominique Rizzo, and I think she's fabulous. She offers great advice when she cooks on TV. During a recent Masterclass, however, in a segment on which oils to cook with, some advice was given which I strongly disagreed with, and which I'd like to take the time to correct.
The presenters essentially offered a few types of oils to use. They offered "good" olive oil, "ordinary" olive oil, grapeseed oil and sesame oil. There are so many more options than this!!
Olive oil:
To my mind there is only one kind, the "good" stuff. Extra virgin, cold pressed and organic. But I wouldn't put it in a hot pan, it would quickly become a bad fat and damaging to health. I drizzle it on a plate after serving food, or use it in salads.
Grapeseed:
The brand shown on the show was in a clear glass bottle. Any oil in clear glass or clear plastic is HYDROGENATED. This is an industrially processed oil, one step before margerine, which has been superheated and mixed with petrochemicals to give shelf life. All the beneficial properties that oil had have been destroyed and replaced by health wrecking properties. Pretend these don't exist.
Sesame oil:
This is a great oil for flash frying or stir frying, as are peanut, virgin coconut and virgin palm oils.
The fats I use most in the kitchen are butter, ghee and coconut oil. These are high in saturated fats and therefore have the advantage of being stable to temperature. This means that when you stick them in a hot pan they don't become poison. Bonus! I use ghee for Indian style cooking (obviously), coconut for Thai and Malay style food, and butter for European food. When I'm making Italian food I just drizzle olive oil over the plate after I've served it, as Matt Moran described, to give the flavor and the full benefits of the oil. Easy.
Using fats correctly, and libberally, is integral to good health. A high fat diet is a good diet, another fact TV chefs seem ignorant to. Fats are a food group essential to vitality. If we minimise fats such as nuts, avocado, egg yolks, fish, meats, butter and oils, we will have imbalanced hormones, blood sugar imbalance leading to weight gain, poor concentration, skin problems and even cholesterol problems.
I'm often asked about the cholesterol paradox. It's simple; it's just biochemically impossible for a high fat diet to cause high cholesterol. I'm not talking about damaged fats, by all means avoid those! The overwhelming evidence today shows that a diet high in refined foods is the culprit for all chronic illness, including cholesterol.
So if this information is news to you, restock your pantry with the good oils, ignore the bad and live healthily ever after! And never take nutrition advice from people without formal training!
Monday, February 15, 2010
Butter Vs Margarine and the truth about fats
Who’s seen that add about how we’re all killing our children by pouring tones of butter through their arteries every year? The one where that cardiologist chastises us for negligent parenting? Isn’t it a great add? Don’t you feel ashamed and want to immediately haul all the butter into the bin and fly out to buy some Meadowlea?
Well be not afraid. Here is the truth about butter.
Butter has been made by man in certain parts of the world for eons. I’m a big advocate of the theory that our bodies adapt to a diet over millennia, which means we should eat what our ancestors ate if we want to be healthy. For caucasians and some other groups, this means a little organic butter is not such a huge issue. But it’s true that it contains saturated fats, so how can it be good?
There is no evidence that has ever suggested that naturally occurring fats cause heart disease. There’s plenty of evidence, however, that man made fats, like the hydrogenated oils which become margarines and Crisco oils, are the real culprits. And in fact the heart attack, common as it is now, was a medical rarity until 90 odd years ago, which coincides with the advent of human interference with fats. Which means that humans ate their butter for all those eons without ever having a single heart attack (and no, it wasn’t because they died younger, that average stat actually hasn’t changed much if you adjust for lower infant mortality and antibiotics).
So here’s the lowdown on fats. Getting our fats right is absolutely integral to good health. Fats should make up 15-20% of a healthy diet. There are many different types of fats, but the ones that belong in the human diet fall into 2 main groups.
Saturated fat
This comes mainly from animals, but there are some plant sources such as coconut oil and peanut oil. These fats are more stable to heat. This means that when you cook with them they don’t lose their integrity and become an oxidized or “bad” fat. So in practical terms, if you’re making asian food, use the oil they’d use traditionally, which is often peanut oil or sometimes coconut oil. If you’re making European or Indian food, butter or ghee is ideal. I would strongly recommend that you use organic butter. This is cleaner, free from chemicals, and higher in omega oils because the cows ate grass and did exercise, instead of subsisting on corn feed and standing all day in a pen, as is the lot of a factory farmed animal.
Saturated fats should make up about 5 percent of our diet. Yes, we eat way more than that in the west due to the cheapness of factory farmed meat, but animal fat is not inherently evil.
Omega oils
These are the essential fatty acid group, and you would have heard much about omega 3, how important it is for heart health and so on. Food industry think they can throw some omegas into bread and dupe us that it’s suddenly a health food. It’s important to know the natural sources of omegas, so we won’t be tricked into thinking bread is a good source. Omega oils come from plants. When we eat plants,including vegies and nuts and seeds, we eat omega oils. They are also extracted from nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and so on. Fish are high in omega 3 oil because of the plankton they eat. The important thing to know about omega oils is that they destabalise easily, i.e. they become bad fats when they’re exposed to heat and light. This means if you buy an oil in a clear glass (or worse, plastic) bottle, it has been hydrogentated (meaning superheated and treated with chemicals) in order to extend its shelf life. This is now a bad fat. Anyone who produces quality cold pressed oil will sell it to you in a dark glass bottle. If you do buy these lovely, quality oils, then you cook with them, you’ll unfortunately make a bad fat of it right there in your kitchen. I get around the issue of Mediterranean cuisine by using butter for the cooking part, then drizzling organic olive oil on the plate as I serve. Omega oils should make up about 10 - 15% of your diet.
Margerines all fall into the category of omega oils that have been hydrogenated and turned into bad fats. Then they’re treated with emulsifiers, chemicals which give the margarine a smooth texture, dyed a pleasant yellow colour and marketed to us by slandering the opposition. Sound like what we should be giving our kids? Sound like something that deserves a heart foundation tick?
How about this for an alternative solution; if you have a doubt about both butter and margarine, skip both and use avocado as a spread. No one can argue against a good ole’ avo.
Here's an interesting study
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Publications/Food-Beverage-Nutrition/FoodNavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Saturated-fats-not-linked-to-heart-disease-Meta-analysis/?c=mvNDRfNEiPdQ7CH%2BRsBzxQ%3D%3D&utm_source=Newsletter_Subject&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BSubject
Well be not afraid. Here is the truth about butter.
Butter has been made by man in certain parts of the world for eons. I’m a big advocate of the theory that our bodies adapt to a diet over millennia, which means we should eat what our ancestors ate if we want to be healthy. For caucasians and some other groups, this means a little organic butter is not such a huge issue. But it’s true that it contains saturated fats, so how can it be good?
There is no evidence that has ever suggested that naturally occurring fats cause heart disease. There’s plenty of evidence, however, that man made fats, like the hydrogenated oils which become margarines and Crisco oils, are the real culprits. And in fact the heart attack, common as it is now, was a medical rarity until 90 odd years ago, which coincides with the advent of human interference with fats. Which means that humans ate their butter for all those eons without ever having a single heart attack (and no, it wasn’t because they died younger, that average stat actually hasn’t changed much if you adjust for lower infant mortality and antibiotics).
So here’s the lowdown on fats. Getting our fats right is absolutely integral to good health. Fats should make up 15-20% of a healthy diet. There are many different types of fats, but the ones that belong in the human diet fall into 2 main groups.
Saturated fat
This comes mainly from animals, but there are some plant sources such as coconut oil and peanut oil. These fats are more stable to heat. This means that when you cook with them they don’t lose their integrity and become an oxidized or “bad” fat. So in practical terms, if you’re making asian food, use the oil they’d use traditionally, which is often peanut oil or sometimes coconut oil. If you’re making European or Indian food, butter or ghee is ideal. I would strongly recommend that you use organic butter. This is cleaner, free from chemicals, and higher in omega oils because the cows ate grass and did exercise, instead of subsisting on corn feed and standing all day in a pen, as is the lot of a factory farmed animal.
Saturated fats should make up about 5 percent of our diet. Yes, we eat way more than that in the west due to the cheapness of factory farmed meat, but animal fat is not inherently evil.
Omega oils
These are the essential fatty acid group, and you would have heard much about omega 3, how important it is for heart health and so on. Food industry think they can throw some omegas into bread and dupe us that it’s suddenly a health food. It’s important to know the natural sources of omegas, so we won’t be tricked into thinking bread is a good source. Omega oils come from plants. When we eat plants,including vegies and nuts and seeds, we eat omega oils. They are also extracted from nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and so on. Fish are high in omega 3 oil because of the plankton they eat. The important thing to know about omega oils is that they destabalise easily, i.e. they become bad fats when they’re exposed to heat and light. This means if you buy an oil in a clear glass (or worse, plastic) bottle, it has been hydrogentated (meaning superheated and treated with chemicals) in order to extend its shelf life. This is now a bad fat. Anyone who produces quality cold pressed oil will sell it to you in a dark glass bottle. If you do buy these lovely, quality oils, then you cook with them, you’ll unfortunately make a bad fat of it right there in your kitchen. I get around the issue of Mediterranean cuisine by using butter for the cooking part, then drizzling organic olive oil on the plate as I serve. Omega oils should make up about 10 - 15% of your diet.
Margerines all fall into the category of omega oils that have been hydrogenated and turned into bad fats. Then they’re treated with emulsifiers, chemicals which give the margarine a smooth texture, dyed a pleasant yellow colour and marketed to us by slandering the opposition. Sound like what we should be giving our kids? Sound like something that deserves a heart foundation tick?
How about this for an alternative solution; if you have a doubt about both butter and margarine, skip both and use avocado as a spread. No one can argue against a good ole’ avo.
Here's an interesting study
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Publications/Food-Beverage-Nutrition/FoodNavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Saturated-fats-not-linked-to-heart-disease-Meta-analysis/?c=mvNDRfNEiPdQ7CH%2BRsBzxQ%3D%3D&utm_source=Newsletter_Subject&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BSubject
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