The Good Stuff - Part II

Humans need fats in their diet and we get confused by what is a good fat and what is a bad fat and why. I'll try to make this as easy as possible.

The best fats come from whole foods eaten in their raw form. They include nuts, peanuts and avocados.

The next best source of fats is lightly processed foods like Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Organic Canola Oil. These first 2 groups are monounsaturated fats. They lower bad cholesterol while raising good.

The third fat is a saturated fat, but a medium thread saturated fat - Extra Virgin Organic Coconut oil. This fat is a great source of lauric acid which has tons of health benefits including boosting metabolism and burning fat. It also has anti viral and anti bacterial properties.

Next on the list are polyunsaturated fat sources which include Salmon, Fish oil and some of the other vegetable oils. I have no use for corn oil or some of the others. Between olive, canola and coconut oils I have all of the bases covered.

All of the other fats are the ones you want to limit or avoid, but since this is an all GOOD post I won't go into detail.

So now you are asking "OK Smart Boy what do I do with this information?"  I will tell you what we are doing and hope that helps.

The nuts and avocados are pretty easy to understand. To add more to your diet try prepacking snack sized batches of almonds and putting them in your purse or lunch bag or pocket. Add one snack a day and you are doing great things for your body. I posted a raw chocolate mousse that has avocados as it's base. That gives you a dessert with healthy fats. Look under the Toxin free Turkey day posts for that.

I use olive oil for most sauteing and dressings. I mince garlic and add dried Italian herbs and olive oil and keep it around for quick garlic bread and also for a healthier topping for air popped popcorn.

Coconut oil is a great swap for butter across the board. I'm not going to go into Crisco too much, but bakers you can use coconut oil to get that flaky crust while doing something nice for your body. It is solid at room temperature so it works nicely for biscuits and lots of stuff.

Coconut oil is fantastic for stir fries. It is great on toast instead of butter or oleo. Any recipe calling for unsalted butter can be swapped at even amounts for coconut oil.

That's the skinny on fats - GOOD fats.

Be very well and more soon....