Comment by leethargo
7 years ago
I like it, too. Pretty much what I've been following for the last 1-2 years.
Would like more clarification on the saturated fats front, though (compare coconut oil, butter, palm oil, trans fats).
7 years ago
I like it, too. Pretty much what I've been following for the last 1-2 years.
Would like more clarification on the saturated fats front, though (compare coconut oil, butter, palm oil, trans fats).
Basically, many of their healthy fat oils are actually highly processed (which are not recommended), while the non-processed unsaturated fats (such as olive oil) are not suitable for (high-temperature) cooking.
"unsaturated fats (such as olive oil) are not suitable for (high-temperature) cooking."
That's not true, another human myth.
here is the paper, TLDR: olive oil retains most of its nutritional benefits even when heated in high temperatures.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf020506w
go for healthy fat! :)
You're missing the point – oils are (un)suitable for cooking primarily based on the risk of oxidation via heat. That study is only about the polyphenol content of olive oil (which, according to the study, do not get degraded as much as we might have thought), but it says nothing about the oxidation of poly-unsaturated fats.
Unsaturated fats are at a much higher risk of oxidation, which is why cooking with canola oil (7.4% saturated, 28.1% polyunsaturated), for instance, is so dangerous – without the hydrogen armor around the carbon backbone, the fat is at high risk for oxidation, after which point it becomes toxic.
The study you linked to even alludes to this danger: > It is worth noting that all the heating methods assayed resulted in more severe polyphenols losses and oil degradation for Arbequina than for Picual oil, which could be related to the lower content in polyunsaturated fatty acids of the latter olive cultivar. These findings may be relevant to the choice of cooking method and olive oil cultivar to increase the intake of olive polyphenols.
Suggesting that if you want to cook at higher heats with olive oil, you should search for one with an exceptionally low polyunsat content.
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Avoid oils in general. They're mostly devoid of nutrition (i.e. no fiber, lacking vitamins and minerals compared to the food source) and only contain fat https://youtu.be/LbtwwZP4Yfs
As someone from Spain, a place that's soon gonna have the highest life expectancy in the world, yeah we're not removing olive oil from about 50% of the "core" dishes that we regularly eat.
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/spain-to-beat-...
https://www.oliveoilmarket.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/3.p...
I don't have the book at hand right now to cite exact pages, but Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has a much better explanation and cited sources on why one would want to avoid oils in favor of the whole plant source. Looking at longevity, it's relative and multifaceted - maybe oils aren't as damaging as not exercising, but it doesn't make them healthy.
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If Spain has the best diet why did it take this long to rise up in the rankings?
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It doesn't make a blind bit of difference. As long as you're a) not obese, b) not eating too much sugar and b) eating reasonable quantities of vegetables, everything else is a rounding error. Read just about any study on nutrition and you'll see negligible effect sizes at the very cusp of statistical significance.
All of the confusion about what we're supposed to eat derives from this simple fact. We've got all sorts of data suggesting that this diet or this food might be good for you, but the effect sizes are too small to care about.
If you obsessively tweak your diet based on every little scrap of data, you might possibly earn yourself three or four months of healthy life expectancy compared to a diet that your great-grandmother would recognise as being sensible. It's just not worth the effort.
There is no reason to avoid fat.
Here is one instance of an easily accessible peer-reviewed-science-based list of the current knowledge on dietary fat: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/news/t/fat
It does not show that oils or fat are something to blanket avoid.
I didn't say to avoid fat, I said to avoid extracted fats (oils). Whole food fats e.g. the olive instead of olive oil is fine
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Wrong. Quality fats are not only essential but also good for you for example: olive oils, Avocado oils.
Avoid (cheap) vegetable oils such as sunflower and rapeseed oils and the derived products with hydrogenated oils, such as margarines.
He's saying to prefer the whole food (the "source") over the raw oil. Doesn't seem that wrong.
Also, this health guide lists sunflower and "cheap" canola as examples of good unsaturated fats.
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Thanks for the link.
This seems mostly in line with what I read in "The Mostly Plant Diet" [1]:
> Fats: Especially avoid trans fats and vegetable (seed) oils, but also other cooking oils, even olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, walnut oil, sesame oil, etc. Enjoy whole olives, whole coconut, whole avocados, whole walnuts, and whole sesame seeds instead. They are naturally packaged with many nutrients and fiber, which is stripped out when processed to make oil.
[1] http://www.humansarenotbroken.com/mostly-plant-diet/
Replying to my own comment since it's too late to edit:
I don't mean avoid fats, I mean avoid extracted fats. Oils lack fiber and much of the nutrition that the whole food has. I.e. eat olives over olive oil, avocados over avocado oil, etc. I understand it sounds crazy, and yes it's not easy, but for my family's health it's been worth it. We've all found great benefit in different ways.
Also Dr Greger's "How Not to Die" book is a better source than the YouTube video I linked.
spraak's point on preferring whole source foods seems sound.
Having watched this video though, it presents a fringe view on dietary lipids, and is full of dubious logic. The presenter gains academic credos by flashing up various small studies very briefly, but never examines their interpretability, nor considers the counterpoint.
Perhaps there is a larger issues here of vegans over-eating poor quality lipids, which he is trying to address.
I don't have the book at hand right now to cite exact pages, but Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has a much better explanation and cited sources
There's some evidence that olive oil is directly good for the heart: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/101/1/44/4564320
That study compares different olive oils, not olive oil vs e.g. whole olives. Dr Greger's "How Not to Die" book explains how oils like olive oil are in general not good for the arteries.
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