[Kevin]
Hey everyone, welcome back to Nutrition for Noobs, I'm your noob Kevin,

[Michelle]
I'm Michelle,

[Kevin]
and in case you hadn't figured out yet, today's episode is all about fat. We are going to talk about fat, and no, we're not talking about your great aunt Lucy, we're talking about the fats that she eats.

[Michelle]
Are you even allowed to say that?

[Kevin]
Sure I can, I can say anything I want, it's my podcast, I'm the host. Stop it, you're the nutrition one?

[Michelle]
I think you're offending somebody now.

[Kevin]
I'm sure I am.

[Michelle]
You know our dog Otis is very, how shall I say, he's of a significant girth. Even I tell him he's fluffy like a cloud.

[Kevin]
Exactly, there's just more to love. So we've all heard about the various different types of fat, there's monosaturated, polysaturated, unsaturated, trans, cholesterol, both good and bad, animal vs plant based fats, and then there's the different types of oils for cooking, frying, salads, and everything else. So my question is, what's up?

I really want to understand the different types of fats, what's good fat, what's bad fat, because when I look at the nutrition labels on food, I really get confused, because they have these random numbers saying how much fat, well, they're not random, I guess, but they have these numbers saying how much fat there is in the food. And I don't understand, is that a good thing? Do I want a high number?

Or is it bad? Do I want a low number? So let's get some clarity on fat.

That's a joke about clarified butter.

[Michelle]
Awesome, let's do it. Let's do it. I'm gonna try to be less technical with this one, and just give people the information that they need to navigate food labels.

[Kevin]
Excellent.

[Michelle]
When you're buying products, and just just enough to understand the difference between them. I find that different people out there pushing different diet perspectives, they tend to get really, really super technical about eat this and not that, and this fat and that fat, and, and really kind of going after reductionist, or like a very reductionist view of the science. And I want to bring everybody back continuously to the idea that things, if you eat things that are whole, you don't have this problem.

Because everything is in balance, in nature, in ratios, and it is nutrient dense. And that any fat content that there is in that food is generally in the perfect amount. And you know, that includes things like nuts.

Because if we ate things that that were whole, it would be like it used to be Kevin around the Christmas time, there'd be a bowl of nuts and a fancy nutcracker. You'd have to crack your nuts open, you wouldn't and you wouldn't eat very many of them because you're tired of cracking the nuts open. Nowadays, we can go and get like a Costco sized bag of almonds and just chow on them.

And then of course, we eat too much. So if we stick to whole, we don't have this problem. But it's an unavoidable conversation.

[Kevin]
So that's the end of the podcast. Everyone just go out and buy a nutcracker and you'll be just fine.

[Michelle]
Yeah, that's it.

[Kevin]
The end. If only it was that simple.

[Michelle]
But this is something that just comes up again and again. So like it has to be addressed. We have to address it here or we wouldn't be doing our job at Nutrition for Noobs.

[Kevin]
And it is confusing.

[Michelle]
So let's talk about the truth about fat, the skinny on fat, the skinny on fat. There is pervasive disagreement in the evidence based nutrition community on ideal or optimal fat intake. And I've been to so many conferences and so many courses, and there's many different perspectives.

And I find that those perspectives vary the most between a person specific specialty of medical discipline.

[Kevin]
Okay, what does that mean? Explain, please.

[Michelle]
A cardiologist will have a very different perspective than you know, somebody that is helping somebody with maybe a particular bowel issue.

[Kevin]
Okay, okay, I see.

[Michelle]
Okay, so they will have different perspectives. And this comes back to that problem of five blind doctors, and they're all working on an elephant. And one of them is working on the trunk, and one of them is working on the tail.

And there's one on each leg, and there's one underneath, and there's one standing on top. And I don't know, that's more than five, but whatever. If you don't do the math, if you can picture this image, they're all blind, and they're all working on one specific body part, and not one of them knows that they're treating an elephant, right?

[Kevin]
Because they only see their little section of the elephants, not the whole picture.

[Michelle]
Exactly. So when we don't look at things in their entirety, then sometimes we can miss the rest of the context. And that's been probably what I have learned the most, and that I stick to, and what I love so much about what I do, and the teachers that I learned from.

So it's an unavoidable conversation. Even if we look at the world's healthiest populations, that doesn't really help us eliminate a lot of the confusion, because among the world's healthiest populations, they also consume varied amounts of intake of fat. And I think the largest source of confusion there is the Mediterranean diet, because there's this perception that the Mediterranean diet has tons of fish and tons of olive oil.

But what we know from studying the healthiest of those Mediterranean populations, and the one that's part of what we call the blue zones on the planet in Sardinia, Italy, we find out that they do consume olive oil in their diet, but they consume very small amounts compared to what we might imagine in the West, where we're slathering oil and vinegar on our salads and cooking with copious amounts of oil. They actually have a far cleaner, far fresher, far more whole diet than we tend to interpret it as here in the West.

Anyway, I digress. Anyway, one thing that every single perspective agrees on, no matter where they fall in the appropriate levels of fat intake, they agree that quality is most important, high quality fats and making sure that caloric intakes are not excessive. And this is where the problem begins, is that there is nine calories per gram in fat, as opposed to four calories of a carbohydrate.

So this fat versus carb argument, fat always loses out in that argument because there's far more calorie density in the same amount of fat as there is in the amount of carbohydrate, regardless of the carbohydrate's quality. But here is the long and the short of fats and oils from a dietary perspective. They are not necessary in our diet, if we eat a diet that is predominantly whole foods, and eliminating them generally increases dietary nutrient density.

We don't get as full as fast when we take those fats out of the equation and we get more full on actual food that is nutrient dense. They contribute, as I said, significant calories, nine calories per gram. But for those nine calories per gram, you're getting way fewer nutrients, you're getting no fiber and you're getting very few phytochemicals.

[Kevin]
So basically just for stuff you're in your body, it's less nutrient rich, a fat versus other food.

[Michelle]
Yeah, yeah. So gram for gram, it's a very poor trade off of what you could be putting in your body. And then of course, the trans fatty versions are terrible and everybody agrees on that and they should be completely avoided.

So even the Okinawans, I think they're best known as being a population of longevity and low disease rates. They have very, very small amounts of oil, if any, in their diets. And then the Mediterranean blue zones definitely have more generous amounts, but not nearly the amount that we interpret in the West as a Mediterranean diet.

[Kevin]
Right. The other thing with the Mediterranean diet, a criticism of that, or I don't know if it's a criticism, but support, is also it's generally an overall healthier lifestyle.

[Michelle]
Absolutely.

[Kevin]
Because they're outside more, they walk, they're less dependent on cars than say North America, and they eat fresher food because they have fresh tomatoes 365 days a year. I'm so envious of them.

[Michelle]
Oh my God, the food over there is just incredible. Everything is fresh.

[Kevin]
In which case it's not necessarily just the oil. You can't just have a North American diet and eat high quality Mediterranean olive oil and think that you're having the Mediterranean diet. You have to live that lifestyle, which is a much bigger picture.

[Michelle]
This is the whole thing. And I think any cardiologist on the planet and anybody that looks in the medical research, they're going to quote that Mediterranean diet. They're going to recommend it to any client that is there for heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure, whatever.

I'm trying to remember who was that. Was that Ancel Keys? I think it was maybe Ancel Keys that first brought that to light.

But we now have so much more up-to-date population-based research primarily in the blue zones. I keep mentioning it. And I think also what those populations have in common is there's very little or no processed food.

And I think that's probably the biggest difference with our diet here because it's very easy in the West to be, I'm going to put air quotes around plant-based and eat exclusively foods that came prepackaged. There's plant-based everything now. Plant-based burgers, plant-based dogs, plant-based this, plant-based that.

Right.

[Kevin]
It's still processed. Yeah.

[Michelle]
Plant-based used to mean healthy. Vegetarian used to mean what we call vegan today, actually, to be super honest.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
Those used to indicate a healthy diet, but they don't anymore. So we have to be more specific and say whole food plant-based.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
Let's break down the fats.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
Monosaturated fats, monosaturated fats. So we're going to do a little chemistry lesson. It's a carbon chain that has one spot where hydrogen is missing, which means that is one point of unsaturation.

So carbon chain, hydrogen missing in one spot or one point of unsaturation. And then that is associated with neutral or slightly beneficial effects on health.

[Kevin]
OK.

[Michelle]
So examples of monosaturated fats that we can buy and consume are olives, olive oil, canola oil, avocado, most nuts except for walnuts, pine nuts, butternuts. They are have different types of fats. But what I want to highlight there is that and this is what we know the Mediterranean's do more of.

It's more about eating the olives than just the oil.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
Right. And for us, it's more about it should be more about eating the avocado than the avocado oil.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
And having good nuts and a handful of them and not a Costco sized bag or not the peanut oil. Right.

[Kevin]
OK.

[Michelle]
OK. So then the next category is polyunsaturated. So we know if monosaturated means mono one, one hydrogen missing polyunsaturated means a carbon chain that has more than one spot where hydrogen is missing.

So more than one point of unsaturation. And those are associated with generally favorable effects on health. And they include most vegetable oils, seeds, other nuts, grains, legumes and other plants.

[Kevin]
OK.

[Michelle]
And the healthiest of those that I mentioned would be the seeds, the nuts, the grains, the legumes and plants. And we should set the vegetable oils aside. And then we move to saturated fat, which is a carbon chain that can't accept any more hydrogen atoms.

[Kevin]
Makes sense.

[Michelle]
So it is fully saturated.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
So saturated fats are the ones that are thick at room temperature.

[Kevin]
OK.

[Michelle]
And those are associated with coronary artery disease risk, insulin resistance and diabetes risk. So saturated fats are like your butter, your lard, stuff like that. The fats that are in the animal foods that we consume, like the grizzle, you know, on your meat and such.

[Kevin]
Right. Would that also be coconut oil? Because you said a solid at room temperature.

[Michelle]
Yes.

[Kevin]
OK. So also as well, some vegetable.

[Michelle]
So coconut oil is like one of the biggest lies in nutrition science ever that occurred because we learned in nutrition school that coconut oil cures everything.

[Kevin]
I remember it was a superfood for a while.

[Michelle]
And people were being told to take teaspoons of it and it would increase their insulin resistance.

[Kevin]
It would just taste gross.

[Michelle]
It would do all of these magical things. And, you know, we would create these little like instantaneous chemical reactions that would show some sort of an immediate benefit. But meanwhile, we're lining people's arteries and veins with very damaging fatty deposits and building up plaques and and just setting off disease promoting conditions throughout the whole body.

And it turned out just to be a very, very clever set of staged studies that were sort of bought and paid for.

[Kevin]
Ah, nice.

[Michelle]
And it was all a hoax like it's coconut. Coconut oil is great to use as a moisturizer on your skin and external, not internal.

[Kevin]
That's the lesson here.

[Michelle]
And eat the coconut flesh and drink the coconut water. But yeah, but the coconut oil should not be should not be eaten for sure. OK, but yeah, it's really great to get your rings off.

I don't know. Actually, I use extra virgin. So that's what I did when I stopped consuming coconut oil.

I had this like this huge tub of like really expensive extra virgin coconut oil. And it was, you know, it went from being like a super expensive ingredient in my cooking and it changed to being like a super inexpensive skin cream.

[Kevin]
Or great for squeaky hinges on your doors or you name it. Coconut oil anywhere you want. Just don't ingest.

[Michelle]
You know, I just take a little bit of it in the palm of my hand and it melts it. You know, it melts when it comes in contact with your body heat and then put a couple drops of essential oil and just rub it around my eyes with my ring finger and into my skin. And it makes your skin beautiful and your skin absorbs it very nicely.

I digress. That was your beauty tip for today, Kevin.

[Kevin]
Excellent. Thank you. I will.

I will absolutely keep that in mind because I do have some coconut oil and I think I'm going to move it from my kitchen to my bathroom.

[Michelle]
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. OK, so trans fats, we don't even like there.

[Kevin]
OK, so I have a little story to tell and it's going to be a tiny bit gross, but it's not me being gross for a change. It's science being gross. I remember when when and I will not say the brand, but there's a particular brand of trans fat that came out and it was always banned in Canada, but it was allowed in the United States for several years.

And there was a study done on it. And just when it was coming out to say, oh, this great new fat is amazing and blah, blah, blah. And the study said after eating a small quantity of this, people had, and I quote, anal leakage and fecal urgency.

Yikes! And that was enough to say I am never having anything with trans fats. When you put those words together, it's just a big no.

And I can't believe anyone would want to eat this oil ingested at all after hearing that.

[Michelle]
What kind of food was that?

[Kevin]
It was it was a food for frying. Again, I don't want to say the brand name because it might still be around and I don't want to be sued. I'll tell you what brand it was when we're no longer recording.

[Michelle]
Oh, my gosh.

[Kevin]
And and so it was used, I believe some major food chains like burger chains used it to fry their their fries again for a fairly short period, because then the study came out and decided this brand was absolutely horrible. But as I say, so so from that moment on, I was so against trans fats because I don't want those two symptoms ever.

[Michelle]
That's disgusting.

[Kevin]
Yes, it is. It is. So I'm sorry for bringing that up.

But please continue, Michelle. We can I think we can safely now skip trans fats altogether. People, unless you want anal leakage or fecal urgency, don't eat that next.

[Michelle]
There's a picture in my head.

[Kevin]
There's oh, it's very, very, very clear.

[Michelle]
But let me just state just to round this off for people that what a trans fat actually is. It's when the position of one hydrogen atom changes the natural shape of the molecule and it impairs its function. So it's not natural.

[Kevin]
Well, it certainly changes the natural shape of some other things as well. Apparently, it's exceedingly unnatural.

[Michelle]
Oh, my God. See, I've always liked to be the one that grosses you out. But you've got me now.

[Kevin]
I got you. I'm so glad one for me.

[Michelle]
The example that you give is so good because this is what like industry, like they find ways of making something look like you absolutely must buy it. And and they just change the messaging ever so slightly. And people are just sucked in so easily.

Like so example, you remember, like I think trans fat are pretty much being banned now. They're not they're not allowed to to use them as an ingredient in food anymore.

[Kevin]
Well, because I thought that the selling point of a trans fat was that your body didn't absorb the I might be using the wrong terminology, but your body didn't absorb the calories. So it was meant to be like a zero calorie sweetener for fat because I thought like the molecules were somehow like too large or or, as you say, adjusted or unnatural so that your body didn't absorb the calories that just went right through you. As my previous discussion has highlighted, it really did go right through you.

And that was the selling point of trans fats, I thought.

[Michelle]
I don't know. Actually, I don't know about that. What I knew of was its shelf stability.

[Kevin]
Maybe that was part of it as well.

[Michelle]
It made things shelf stable forever.

[Kevin]
Because it's not natural.

[Michelle]
Yeah, I have a general rule. If it doesn't decompose, I don't eat it.

[Kevin]
That's a good rule. OK, enough about trans fats.

[Michelle]
But I wanted to tell you that, like, so so the types of things and I think that we still see this today in some things. You'll see a label that will say zero trans fat added, but often look at the label of those products. And if there is a vegetable oil in on the label, the vegetable oils will denature at high heat and they will become trans fat.

So it may be true that they don't add any trans fat to the product. But the actual production process of making the food will produce trans fats because that oil that that will denature is included. So that's one sneaky way that they sometimes do it.

So anyway, yeah.

[Kevin]
Since you mentioned the oils, is that talking about smoke points and all of that?

[Michelle]
Smoke points part of it.

[Kevin]
Can we do a tiny digression on that? Because I'm just I'd just like to know a tiny bit more about smoke points, because I have heard some oils are better for frying versus salad dressings.

[Michelle]
Yeah, that was one of the arguments for coconut oil, right? That coconut oil had a high smoke point. Olive oil has a lower smoke point.

The peanut oil has a low smoke point. I mean, that that used to be the whole selling feature. Honestly, I just throw all that stuff out with the bathwater pretty much.

I mean, I don't I mean, I will use a little bit if I absolutely, absolutely have to have some sort of an oil on the inside of my air fryer or something or I want to make an avocado toast and I want those little grill marks on my bread, right? Then I might spray a little bit of avocado oil or something on it. Very, very rarely do I use a very little tiny bit.

And I think the only exception I make is that I'm not a psycho crazy person when I go out.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
If I go out and there's there's oil in the food or, you know, whatever. Like I live in the real world. I think I've told you that before.

[Kevin]
Welcome to the real world.

[Michelle]
But that's majority of my time. We make our own meals. We don't eat out a lot.

[Kevin]
Right. Or you choose restaurants that that you're aware of their cuisine and how they cook. Yeah.

[Michelle]
Or choose menu items that are going to not be slathered in oil.

[Kevin]
Right. Right. OK.

[Michelle]
I use a very, very small amounts. And if I do, I spray it on like I'm not frying anything in it.

But really, we don't need it. So if you if I mean, if you're going to deep fry, then I think you have to be really concerned about your smoke point. But I don't recommend anybody that's listening to this podcast that wants to improve their health to deep fry.

[Speaker 2]
That is even I'm a noob and even I know that deep frying is not. I mean, you know, that's why like I bought an air fryer because I do once in a while like, you know, something that's that's, you know, so called fried. And an air fryer, you use like one millionth of the oil.

And it does seem to be, you know, much, you know, much healthier.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I think that's the point. And you can use your air fryer with no oil or you have sometimes if you enjoy a little bit. And there are certain things that do call for it, I guess, if you're looking for that little crispy edge texture on it.

[Speaker 2]
But you don't need that much.

[Speaker 1]
But but to your point, a very, very, very tiny amount, right?

[Speaker 2]
Honestly, I can do a batch of fries in like, you know, one tablespoon of I use avocado oil. And so a big batch of fries with one tablespoon of oil compared to deep frying in cups, I don't know how much you you deep fry.

[Speaker 1]
You know what, though? Let me this is a total digression. But since you brought up the air fryer, you know, the experiment I did one time this was during COVID.

Remember, we were all trying to entertain ourselves.

[Speaker 2]
I remember.

[Speaker 1]
And we all we all became like these culinary geniuses.

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
We were afraid to go out.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
One of my comfort foods from old Michelle old way of eating things that I used to enjoy. I love deep fried dough pickles.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, that's a choice.

[Speaker 1]
Those are our major comfort food of mine. So I did this little experiment during COVID. I found this home recipe to make breaded dough pickles.

And I did one batch in my oven and oven method and I did a batch in my air fryer. Okay, to see if it made any difference.

[Speaker 2]
Sure.

[Speaker 1]
And, and I have to tell you, like they were both delicious. And there wasn't really a lot of difference between using the oven method and the air method. I would just say that the air fryer method was a bit faster, a little bit right, less persnickety and easier to clean up.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
But the but the oven method was absolutely fine. So I don't want I don't want to mislead anybody into thinking that you have to go out and buy an appliance like you have to have a new thing called an air fryer. Air fryers can be a great convenience thing.

But you can achieve a lot of those great results just using your oven.

[Speaker 2]
For sure. And I recommend to anyone listening, there's this amazing tool online. Get a pencil.

Are you ready?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, ready.

[Speaker 2]
It's called Google. And you can no but seriously, like I have, you know, similar with COVID. Like I did my experiments.

And you can find recipes for anything and more healthy, less oil based cooking is certainly becoming much more popular and much more sophisticated, shall we say. And there are a million recipes, a million techniques out there for cooking to reduce your oil, you know, as well as many other things that we talk about in this podcast. So, you know, if people want to experiment on how to deep fry using less oil, like there's tons of resources out there and just type in G O O G L E or Bing or whatever you're chosen.

[Speaker 1]
I in here I promised you this topic was going to be a fast one. And now we're already like all over the place.

[Speaker 2]
Exactly. That's my fault.

[Speaker 1]
But hey, we're giving the people what they want. They want some practical advice on how do I cook this. But let's talk a little bit more about why like why we should be reducing the fat.

And let's talk about the fats that are good. And I think this is where a lot of people's questions are going to be. They're going to be like, well, don't we need fats?

Don't we need essential fats?

[Speaker 2]
Right. Exactly.

[Speaker 1]
Because that's really where the argument usually goes. And that's certainly what we were taught. And yes, the answer to that question is yes, we need essential fats or essential fatty acids.

The reason why we need them is because they are critical for our brain, our nervous system, and our cell membranes are a protective part of our cell membranes. And we can't synthesize essential fatty acids on our own. They must be obtained from our diet.

They must be obtained from food. And here's the thing, though. The balance of essential fatty acids is so important.

And I think this is where a lot of people get it wrong. They just think EFA, EFA, EFA. I need all of these EFAs and I'm good.

I'm just going to pop my fish oil supplement or my flax seeds, my flaxseed oil or whatever, and just supplementally add this into their diet and consider that they're good. What we know, though, is that there's incredible imbalance in our population dietary patterns in North America when it comes to omega-6. Omega-6, even though it is one of the essential fatty acids, it's important, but it's important only in balance with omega-3.

And then we can throw omega-9 in there. There's also omega-9. But omega-9, actually, our body can produce that one, but we can't produce the 3 and the 6.

So 3 is our alpha linoleic or our ALA and omega-6 is our linoleic, our LA. Omega-6 actually, in high amounts, contributes to health risk. It's actually pro-inflammatory when it's in amounts that are unchecked.

And typically, our ratio of omega-3 to omega-6, when we're optimally healthy, should be 1 to 1. We should have a balance of omega-3 to 6. And then our boundary of still sort of reasonable health and good health is no more than 1 to 4 because it is easier to get omega-6 in the diet than it is to get omega-3.

So 1 to 1 in a perfect world, 1 to 4 for healthy. But on average, in North America, our ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 is 1 to 15.

[Speaker 2]
Whoa.

[Speaker 1]
Or in some cases, I've seen studies out of the U.S. where it's 1 to 36. Oh, wow. In the deep fried south.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
So when we get into those kinds of ratios where our population is seeing 1 to 15 more typically, or 17, there's a study, one study that said 17, but 15, 17, they were splitting hairs when we start arguing about that.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah. It's still pretty high.

[Speaker 1]
But anywhere between that and 1 to 36, like there's something seriously fundamentally wrong with the diet and popping an omega-3 supplement is not going to fix that. Right. So it's not really about adding in more omega-3s.

It's about removing omega-6s, which our biggest culprit for that typically are prepackaged and processed foods.

[Speaker 2]
OK.

[Speaker 1]
But there are also things like, you know, certain nuts are going to be like hemp seeds. Hemp seeds are a great source of fiber. They're a great source of omegas, but they tend to be higher in omega-6.

So you wouldn't want to have hemp seeds alone and have that be your only choice. You'd want to have some flax and hemp, for example.

[Speaker 2]
OK. OK.

[Speaker 1]
Things like that, right? Get to know your omegas and read your supplements or, you know, or really just kind of rely on chia and flax. Those are great sources of fiber.

They're both great sources of high in omega-3s. And worry more about the omega-6s that you're getting in than so much about trying to stuff more omega-3.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And then the other thing you can do is you can look to supplements that are really, really well balanced in natural sources of omegas. And those are often algae-derived, not fish-derived. So that's the other thing I would do is I would steer people away from the fish-derived, fish oil-derived sources of omega-3 only because not that good quality fish oil isn't a great source.

It actually is. But the trouble is there's been so many studies done. The supplement industry is very unregulated.

[Speaker 2]
Right. Right.

[Speaker 1]
More often than not, those supplements are not good quality. And the process is lacking controls. And those oils are rancid by the time you're popping it into your body.

And then you start consuming a really yummy, rancid fish oil.

[Speaker 2]
We're back to the trans fat discussion.

[Speaker 1]
It'll actually create more toxin and more problems in your body than— and here you think that you're doing something good. So the best way to do that is we eliminate the middle fish and we just go to where the fish got it from. We get a really good quality algae-derived supplement.

Or go have some excellent plant-based sushi once in a while and have a good seaweed salad.

[Speaker 2]
I love seaweed salad. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Have some wakame and some nori and consume more sea vegetable. Add it to your brobs. Add it to your soups, your stir fries or whatever.

That's another great, great way to get it. And then you're going to get some good healthy sources of iodine and some other things as well. So anyway.

OK. So those are essential fats. And then cholesterol.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. Let's talk cholesterol.

[Speaker 1]
They've got the whole cholesterol thing. So cholesterol is part of our cell membrane. So we need to have cholesterol in our body.

It's present in every single one of our body's cells. But the thing with cholesterol is if we have the proper dietary intake, our body makes what it needs. Our body makes all of the cholesterol that we require in the form that we require it.

So we don't need to get cholesterol from our diet. And in fact, dietary sources of cholesterol are incredibly problematic. So there's trace amounts of cholesterol in plants.

But the ones that we're concerned about are from animal sources, highly concentrated in eggs and organ meats. And we know without a doubt the literature is flooded with this information. It's bulletproof and nobody can contest this anymore.

High dietary cholesterol is associated with chronic diseases and heart disease and vascular issues with blood vessels and all of that.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
And now there's another little category of fat. I don't know if you've heard of, Kevin, have you heard of phytosterols?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
So phyto meaning plants.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
And so sterols.

[Speaker 2]
Meaning sterols.

[Speaker 1]
So phytosterols compete with cholesterol that we get elsewhere in our diet during digestion. OK. So what's really cool is phytosterols from plants will actually block the absorption in the gut of some of these other less friendly ones.

[Speaker 2]
Take that cholesterol.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So that's kind of good. And phytosterols are present in certain vegetable oils.

But in our, the good sources would be our seeds, our nuts, our avocados, wheat germ, legumes. Sprouts. Sprouts are very concentrated.

If you do any sprouting in your kitchen, that's another great way to get it. So I think you kind of get the point here. But really, so what's our issue with having too much fat?

Aside from the nine calories per gram, which is usually enough for most women. Actually, it's kind of funny. What I used to say, I would, you know, it was a long journey for me in my transition to being healthier and healthier and healthier.

And, you know, like everyone, I used to try to justify some of my some of my guilty pleasures.

[Speaker 2]
Of course.

[Speaker 1]
But how I started to kind of deter myself, like play a little mental game with myself to say, do I really need to eat that? Do I really want that? And try to get my conscious mind involved in my eating choices instead of just going with my unconscious mind and reaching with it.

I would ask myself when I was holding on to like that donut or that greasy thing. And I would say, this looks really good and I want to eat it. But is it going to look good on my ass?

[Speaker 2]
Good question.

[Speaker 1]
If the answer to that question was no, then it might give me pause. Or I might just have a bite of it and not have, you know, not eat all of it. Or maybe I would choose to not have it at all.

And this would happen. This happens most often at other people's houses and parties, things like cheesecake or, you know, stuff like that.

[Speaker 2]
The temptation.

[Speaker 1]
But here's the truth. So anybody that knows me knows I have two great heroes. One of them is T.

Colin Campbell. The other is Kabul Esselstyn Jr. And Kabul Esselstyn did this great study. He was at the Cleveland Clinic.

He was looking at this research about heart disease and disease reversal period. And he actually thought, you know what, I think that if we actually use dietary interventions, we could spend as much time in consult as we do with them in surgery and recovery. And we would get the same result if we could get them to change their lifestyle, their diet and lifestyle.

So he went to Cleveland Clinic and he said, I would like to have some patients, please, that I could do a study. And we'll document everything and we'll publish it in the literature. And we'll do, you know, we'll do observations and we'll track all the data and we'll see what happens.

And Cleveland Clinic, I'm paraphrasing now that the time they were like, oh, yeah, OK, Caldwell, we'll let you do that. But we're going to give you like the lost causes. OK, they would only give him the patients that had already they couldn't have another bypass surgery or they couldn't have another stent or, you know, they were basically being sent home to get their affairs in order.

So there was no risk that if he put them in this trial that it would get worse. Yeah, that they that they would be missing out on a potentially lifesaving intervention. So they were already told we got nothing for you.

Come and do this other study where we're going to do a diet and lifestyle protocol. So long and short, they gave him only lost causes and there was only one patient that didn't get better and reverse their condition. And it was the one patient that wasn't compliant, didn't stick with the diet.

So so these people were sent home to die and say what they needed to say to their family members. And they reversed their coronary artery diseases and which also many of them had diabetes and other things as well. I mean, I mean, it's fascinating.

This is all in his book, How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. If you watch the Forks Over Knives documentary, they cover it there. And he even ended up helping in reversing it in a colleague.

[Speaker 2]
Wow.

[Speaker 1]
Mind blowing. But here's the long and the short of it and why it's relevant to our fat conversation, Kevin. And if you ever hear Kabul Esselstyn speak, whether it's to a layman group of consumers who are just interested people who are interested in what he's doing, or if it's actual doctors and surgeons and nutritionists in a medical kind of conference, he gets up and he screams at the top of his lungs, no oil, no oil.

And that is one of the key tenements of disease prevention and reversal diet. And the reason is the amount of fat that we are consuming in our diets, in the foods that we're choosing, and then the way that we're slathering oil on everything is largely at cause of all of these diseases that we have.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
That are vascular related, because what Kabul will tell you and what his book will tell you is one drop, one drop of oil as soon as you consume it will kill endothelial cells. So endothelial cells are these little cells that line all of our arteries and veins throughout our entire body, even our brain. And oil flattens it and damages it.

And the reason that's a problem is that those healthy endothelial cells are managing things as they are coming through and producing nitric oxide, which supports the healthy blood flow and the flow of everything, the nutrient transport and also the transport of toxins and other things to get them out of the body. But with a flattened endothelial cell, they're not doing their job. And then these plaques and oils and everything start to accumulate and they line those arteries and veins and give them this coating.

And then it builds and it builds and it builds and it builds until we have a completely restricted artery. And for the male listeners that may be out there listening to our podcast, this is the way that he always gets them in the audience, because men usually get this very quickly.

[Speaker 2]
I know where you're going with this.

[Speaker 1]
The smallest artery or the smallest vein in the entire human anatomy is in males and it's in the penis. And the first sign of that plaque buildup is usually erectile dysfunction. If a man starts to suffer any issues down there with this plumbing, it's usually a sign that you've got major issues elsewhere.

It's just that you'll see it there first because that vein is already very, very small.

[Speaker 2]
See, that's really funny that you should say that. Well, it's not funny, but it's interesting because just yesterday, I was listening to the radio and an ad came on that basically said – I think they said one in four men over 40 have some erectile dysfunction. And of course, this was to promote a…

[Speaker 1]
A drug.

[Speaker 2]
It was either a drug or a clinic. I can't remember what, but it's just interesting that while erectile dysfunction, I'm sure, there are legitimate times when a drug could help. But it's interesting when you look at just one symptom in isolation, you'd say, oh, it's erectile dysfunction here.

Have a pill, a little blue pill, and it'll go away. Whereas that could be a symptom of something bigger, like it could be the canary in the coal mine for a heart issue.

[Speaker 1]
It absolutely is the canary in the coal mine. A hundred thousand percent.

[Speaker 2]
I just find that fascinating.

[Speaker 1]
You know, what's interesting, when we look at actual dietary requirements or guidelines, the pervasive dietary guidelines globally still include, actually, a very generous threshold for fat in the diet. But let's go back to Canada's Food Guide, episode two of our podcast series. Canola oil used to be in the picture.

It's not in the picture anymore. So when we actually use an evidence-based approach to dietary recommendations, there is no requirement for fat in our diet. Can we tolerate fat?

Yes. Should we? Questionable.

Depends upon a lot of things. Depends upon what you're eating. Depends upon your family history.

All of that stuff.

[Speaker 2]
But the rule of thumb is less is better.

[Speaker 1]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
And the rule of thumb is eat a balanced diet.

[Speaker 1]
If you eat whole and you keep the main thing the main thing, then sure, have a little bit. Make it. Make your choice then about your good fat versus your bad fat.

Or eat the avocado and not the oil. And eat the olive and not the oil. And use very, very small amounts.

[Speaker 2]
OK, that makes sense. Well, this has been super helpful. And it's cleared up a lot of questions I've had about all the millions of different types of fat.

But I do have, for once, I have a fact for you.

[Speaker 1]
OK, go for it.

[Speaker 2]
Did you know that about 1,375 olives are pressed in order to make one liter of olive oil?

[Speaker 1]
I know!

[Speaker 2]
And 8,435 sunflower seeds are used to make one liter of sunflower oil. But don't even get me started on baby oil.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, no. That's... OK, you got me with that one.

You started getting me riled up. What you just said, though, like if those statistics were correct, like look at the environmental impact of that.

[Speaker 2]
Of course.

[Speaker 1]
Of that industry, right? We're much better off to just eat the olive. Because this is another thing.

Kyle will ask this instead. This is maybe the best mic drop ever. Oil is not a food.

Oil is not a food. It is derived from food. But it is not a food.

So, I mean, just eat food, people.

[Speaker 2]
Exactly. Eat food. You heard it here first, straight from the horse's mouth.

Not that I'm calling you a horse, Michelle.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I'm offended already.

[Speaker 2]
Eat real food. Oh, you shouldn't. Like this is what you're offended at?

I was talking about like fecal urgency and anal leakage, and now you're offended by me calling you a horse? Please.

[Speaker 1]
I'm just glad that none of the above apply to me.

[Speaker 2]
Exactly. Me too. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 1]
OK, this has gone south really quick. We need to sign off now.

[Speaker 2]
Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. So if you're still listening, thank you for listening.

Thank you for tuning in. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast and send any feedback you have, unless you're complaining about my horrible jokes and my off-color humor, to n4noobs at gmail.com. And for me, that's a see you later.

And I'm going to go move my coconut oil into my bathroom.

[Speaker 1]
Perfect. That sounds like a plan. All right.

Be real, everyone.

[Speaker 2]
This has been Nutrition for Noobs. We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs@gmail.com.

That's the letter N, the number 4, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favorite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends.

That's the best way to spread the word. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts.

It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional, or health advice. Listeners should seek a personal consultation with a qualified practitioner if they have any concerns or before commencing any actions mentioned in the podcast.