by: Paul Fassa
(NaturalNews) For decades we have been indoctrinated that cholesterol from saturated fat is the major harbinger of heart disease and death. The result has been big profits for unhealthy, cheaply produced no/low fat foods like margarine and Big Pharma's dangerous statin drugs.
Bad vs Real Science
The original study that started the whole cholesterol/heart disease hypothesis was conducted on rabbits. They were fed enormous quantities of butter and lard daily, equivalent to a quart a day for humans. But those animals are herbivores, not omnivores. Herbivores are not equipped to digest animal proteins and fats. When a similar study was conducted years later on rats, which like humans are omnivores, there were no negative consequences whatsoever.
More impressive are the three epidemiological human studies involving tens of thousands of subjects over two to three generations. They all discovered higher death rates among those with lower cholesterol counts. Those studies were: The Framingham Study; The Honolulu Heart Program Study; The Japanese Lipid Intervention Trial.
Many agree that stress coupled with heavy refined carbohydrate and junk food diets (SAD) are the sources of most obesity, diabetes, chronic inflammation, and heart disease.
Getting Fats Into Your Diet
Cholesterol is essential to many metabolic functions and forms 20% of our brains as well as part of our cell walls. Depression is often the result of low blood cholesterol levels. Our bodies make some cholesterol while regulating cholesterol blood levels. So if you consume too much cholesterol, the body compensates by making less.
The only bad cholesterol is external, unnatural oxy-cholesterol, which is the result of heating fats to where they oxidize. This occurs commonly in processed and fast food. Natural oxy-cholesterol is produced in the body as part of a regulatory function. But unnatural oxy-cholesterol can obstruct bile functions and eventually cause arterial problems. This arrangement is prevalent among SAD consumers.
A leading nutritional biochemist, Dr. Harry Eidiner Jr., has confirmed in medical journals that you cannot digest protein without fat in your diet. A vegetarian who consumes raw milk dairy products from grass fed cows and free range hen eggs has no problems with taking in sufficient fats.
Strict vegans may have a more difficult time getting enough fats. Virgin coconut oil and fresh raw nuts can be added. Unrefined cold pressed poly-unsaturated plant based oils have positive fatty acid value also. Balancing omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (around two or three to one) is healthiest. Hemp oil has that balance.
Omega-3 flaxseed oil can offset the imbalance of omega-6 olive oil. Avocado and avocado unprocessed oils are rich in good fats. Avocado is so nutrient dense it's often considered a super food. Just make sure polyunsaturated fat oils don't go rancid or get overheated. Seafood or fresh water fish not farmed are good fatty acid sources. But choosing healthy seafood is getting dicier daily.
Eating meat? A few of us need to. But unless you're wiling to go the extra mile to find meats from grass fed livestock treated humanely and pay the extra bucks, you'll be eating meat from diseased, drugged, and distressed animals. Not so healthy. This diet also perpetuates more massive, outrageous suffering to our friends in the animal kingdom.
Include some fat in your diet. Simply avoid refined carbs, processed or fast foods and the phony food no-fat diet craze that lingers on as the legacy of some old bad science.