On Life As A Picky Foodie

Dear Friends;

So what’s a “good” fat?  What’s a “bad” fat?  This kind of labelling is not only simplistic, it is wrong. 

Saturated fat, for example, found in most animal products, has been linked to high cholesterol and heart failure.  However, it is also used to form sex and adrenal hormones, Vitamin D and bile, and a certain amount can be needed for good health.  A major cause of too much cholesterol in the body – a problem largely blamed on saturated fat – is due to overconsumption.  Many people eat foods high in saturated fat multiple times every single day.  Does that sound like something that would have a reasonable, healthy outcome?

On the other end of the spectrum are the essential fatty acids – EFAs.  Sometimes I think this is the closest advertising will ever come to claiming we have found a magic pill.  We hear a lot about Omega 3s, but in fact, there’s a whole host of essential fatty acids.   EPA can help lower cholesterol.  DHA is essential to brain development and growth; it boosts the immune system, aids in combating arthritis, depression, prostate problems and migraines.  EFAs also support thyroid function and promote healthy skin, hair and nails. And many people will be surprised to find out that all green – chlorophyll-rich – foods contain ALA, another essential fatty acid that could help combat high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma and breast cancer.  You see, there’s a reason I keep going on about greens, greens and more greens!

Fish has commonly been known as the best source of omega 3s.  However, due to the high mercury content of wild-caught fish as well as overfishing, this is not a viable long-term option.  In addition, I was shocked to discover that because of the feed given to farmed fish, it is no longer a good source of Omega 3 – quite the opposite!  However, EFAs can be found in flax and hemp oil, chia seeds (a more recent addition to the Superfood family), pumpkin seeds and walnuts.

Essential Fatty Acids are Polysaturated fats.  Unlike their saturated counterparts, they remain liquid even in the refrigerator and can easily go rancid when exposed to light and air.  Make sure to buy them cold-pressed in dark glass bottles from a trusted brand.

Ideally, what we are looking to achieve is a balance between all of these fats.  Consuming too much of one will not – as the marketing of omega 3s would like to have us believe – create optimum health.

In the end, the most important piece of this puzzle is quantity.  Fats become unhealthy when we consume them in excess – even the so-called “good” fats.  The liver plays a major part in fat metabolism, and so can become sluggish from overwork.

Changing up the kinds and amounts of fats we ingest are the perfect example of how making little alterations can create a huge ripple effect on our wellbeing.  How about starting with just one meal?  Using a great olive oil and fresh lemon juice on your salad every Sunday evening instead of pre-packaged dressing can make an enormous difference in how you’ll start off your week.

I cannot say how much fat is the right amount as it varies from person to person -- though going fat-free is far from the one-way ticket to health that we are promised in all those 0% ads.  However, if you do want to reduce the amount of fat in your diet, be sure to do so slowly to avoid cravings.  And, as always, make sure that what you do decide to put into your body is the best quality that you can afford.   Because when it comes to fats, quality is as important as quantity. 

With love,

Gabriela

P.S.  What is the difference between a Superfood and a super food?  Find out in this week’s Friday Night Dinner Blog. 

P.P.S. Thanks again to all of you who sent along new subscribers.  Please do keep 'em coming!  The free Picky Foodie one-on-one counseling session offer will be valid until the end of April.  Here's a reminder of how it works: get five friends, co-workers, family members or strangers to sign up to the On Life As A Picky Foodie newsletter, and you will receive a free forty-five minute consultation with yours truly.  Simply ask anyone signing up to email me and let me know your name. 

Is Free Ever Really Free?

When I was a child and I complained about something being unfair, the answer was oftentimes “Life is unfair.”  And while I don’t necessarily believe that anymore, what I do know is that very little in life is free -- at least when it comes to food and health.

Like when a product is advertised as being sugar free, or free from sodium.  The tricky part is that while the manufacturers may have removed one ingredient, they will invariably have had to make up for it in other ways.  So fat free might mean higher in sugar, salt, flavourings or other additives.  Sugar free might mean a higher proportion of artificial sweeteners.  No sodium might mean more fat, more sugar, more MSG. 

Because companies are interested in turning a profit, which can only happen if what they offer is tasty enough to get us coming back for more.

Food labels love to state two things: what “bad” things they don’t contain – like sugar, fat and salt – and what “good” things they are full of – like calcium, probiotics, iron, etc. But what about everything else that makes up said food?

When I watch television in the US, I often wonder whether it is the advertisements that are the filler in between the shows, or vice versa – well, the same question can be asked about foods: is it the ingredients that are plastered on the packaging in big letters and make all kinds of health claims that truly make up the candy bar, cereal, soup, or is it everything that remains in small print?

The easiest way to check for yourself is to simply compare two labels.  Take yoghurt, for example.  Yoghurt is touted as a good source of good bacteria and calcium. However, people have become afraid of eating too much fat in recent years, and so many have switched to low or no fat versions. 

I compared an original flavoured mainstream yoghurt in both the full and 0.1% fat version and came up with the following: 

In the original, the ingredients listed were as follows:

Yoghurt (skimmed milk concentrate, cream, yoghurt cultures), skimmed milk, liquid sugars (sucrose 7.3%), dextrose, L. Casei imunitass cultures.

The 0.1% contained:

Yoghurt (skimmed milk, skimmed milk concentrate, yoghurt cultures), water, skimmed milk, dextrose, stabilizer (pectin), L. Casei imunitass cultures, flavouring, sweeteners (aspartame, acesulfame K).

So what you’re saving in fat – 1.5 grams per 100 grams or per pot – you’re ingesting in stabilizer, flavourings (which is usually a legal way of saying “you don’t want to know”), aspartame (an artificial sweetener associated with close to 100 side-effects including personality changes, anxiety, palpitations, nausea, and seizures to name a few), and acesulfame K (also known as E950 in the EU, which may be carcinogenic as well as affect the thyroid).  In other words, is free from really free, or will we simply be paying the price elsewhere?

I have gotten fantastic feedback on this newsletter as well as the blog – much of it wonderfully informative and positive J 

The reaction that most puzzles me, however, are the readers who tell me simply that they don’t want to know, people who don’t want to spend the extra two minutes comparing labels, but will gladly sit in a doctor’s waiting room for an hour; people who don’t want to pay the extra money for fresh food but will spend thousands on antacids and pain relievers.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that pills are neither free from expense nor side-effects.  So why not try to start your journey to better health taking those few moments, spending those few cents?  It could save you a lot more in the long run.   

Maybe nothing in life is free, but I promise, it isn’t all such hard work either. 

With love,

Gabriela

P.S.  What do you get when you combine purple carrots, roasted fennel and crunchy radicchio?  Why don’t you find out in this week’s Friday Night Dinner blog?