Understanding Fats in Food: One of the Biggest Misconceptions in the Diet World
The Primal Pioneer Podcast teaches you how to improve the environment you live, work, and exercise in so you can achieve optimal health. Heathar’s leading-edge teachings and expert interviews with integrative health professions teach you the most effective, simple yet deeply transformative solutions to overcoming and preventing every chronic disease today. You’ll walk away from this podcast feeling invigorated, inspired, and confident about your body’s incredible and natural ability to heal!
Understanding Fats in Food: One of the Biggest Misconceptions in the Diet World
One of the biggest pitfalls in the dietary world is a focus on the wrong kind of fats. In episode 34 of the Primal Pioneer, I am talking all about healthy fats. I will teach you about healthy fats as well as what unhealthy fats are best to avoid. I also want to dive into the importance of seasonal eating, health detriments from following the same diet all year round, as well as the impact light has on our metabolic health.
But before we dive right in, let me introduce myself in case this is your first visit. I am your host, Heathar Shepard and I am incredibly passionate about helping people JUST LIKE YOU find the health and happiness they truly deserve.
Besides being an alternative healer and integrative health coach, I’m also a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor who struggled for 10 years until I discovered the MOST important factor for overall health: the environment we live and work in. And in The Primal Pioneer, I share what 98+% of doctors don’t tell you (or don’t even know!) about true health and wellness. You’ll learn about the importance of sunlight, as well as the foods and eating cycles that heal the root causes of chronic disease. And in an age dominated by technology, you’ll discover how EMF mitigation can drastically improve your life.
Everyone has their healing journey with their unique struggles...but I’m here to give you all the tools you need to make that healing happen!
So if you’re ready to learn more about understanding fats in food, keep on reading! And for even more details, listen to ALL of episode 34 of The Primal Pioneer on your favorite streaming platform.
Understanding Fats in Food, Point #1: When it comes to the Ketogenic diet, I am not a proponent of the strict 80/15/5 regime.
When it comes to fats, this is an area that’s one of the biggest pitfalls of the Ketogenic diet, or really any diet. I say Ketogenic specifically because it’s so heavily weighted and focuses on fats. Any diet has a misconception around the types of fats, what’s healthy and what’s not. This is one of the most important health topics, yet one of the most misunderstood areas of diets I need to address with you today. For any of you new to the Ketogenic diet, a ketogenic diet is a diet heavily focused on fats. 80% of the macronutrients are fats, 15% protein and the remaining 5% are carbohydrates. Some people get super strict following that regime within the ketogenic diet, others not so much.
People who typically seek a ketogenic diet are those with cancer, experiencing obesity, type 2 diabetes, or weight loss. These individuals tend to see the biggest success while others simply approach the Ketogenic diet to improve general health. Am I a proponent of this diet? I’m not a proponent of the strict regime in place. Not only that but the intake of fat for us modern people is something we are not equipped to handle. This is why so many people who start a ketogenic diet don’t succeed because their gallbladder can’t process that amount of fat. Ultimately, our modern diets do not contain nearly enough fats that were in the diets of our ancient ancestors. Over time, when we introduce a large amount of fat in the diet, our liver and gallbladder struggle with utilizing this amount of fat without some kind of negative side effect.
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Understanding Fats in Food, Point #2: When approaching a diet, we have to stop being linear as far as what food is bad and what is good.
When it comes to our diet, we need to respect nature. If we are living in an environment where it’s summertime, should we be eating a strict Ketogenic diet? Usually, no. If I had someone in stage 4 cancer needing a boost, short term we may do a ketogenic diet. In general, if someone is relatively healthy, we need to go more with a seasonal approach. A Ketogenic diet is a diet of wintertime, high fat, low carb, moderate protein. That is the nutrient availability during the wintertime. Now that we know all chronic disease is rooted in metabolic function and one of the biggest driving factors influencing metabolism is the light, we must take this into account. When we are approaching a diet, we have to stop being linear as in this food is bad and that food is good.
If your skin and your eyes are not exposed to UV light but you’re eating foods that contain UV light, this is a huge cause of inflammation, metabolic disorders, and chaos at the cellular levels. Most diet gurus won’t tell you that because they don’t get that connection. Something I try to remind my clients and followers is that when it comes to health, it’s not that hard. We have to simply get back to the fundamentals of health. If you are wondering whether a food is good or not, go back to basics. Where was that food grown and what type of light environment are you in? If those two things don’t match, you likely want to make a different food choice.
Understanding Fats in Food, Point #3: Liquid oils are one of the biggest detriments to our health, they should be avoided at all costs.
Despite the advice any professional gives you, if you want to fact check it, think about nature. Did this exist before processing occurred? Did this exist before modern foods became convenient? If we think about these types of fats, we didn't have avocado oil, walnut oil, soy oil, etc.. These liquid oils are one of the biggest detriments to our health and should be avoided at all costs. That may sound extreme but they are very hard on the liver and gallbladder, as well as the hormones and cell membranes. I have seen individuals with cancer come into my practice where popular sought out naturopaths told them to make sure their ketogenic diet contains a lot of vegetable oils. They get a list of all these oils to eat, and these individuals who have cancer start to eat these thinking it’s a benefit to their health.
Several of these individuals come to my practice and now they have lesions in their liver or gallbladder as well as cancer. That is the drastic effect the oils have on our body, they are poisonous and highly processed. When it comes to your fat choices, the focus needs to go away from liquid vegetable oils and into grass-fed animal fats. If you aren’t used to eating these fats, go slowly so you don’t bombard your liver and gallbladder. Our ancient ancestors did not struggle with cancer, heart disease, and the epidemics we face today. Focus on grass-fed butter, lard, leaf lard, and tallows. These should be the primary fats in the diet and only fats that are heated. As far as olive oil goes, we have been told it’s healthy, it can be. It can also be unhealthy. Just like how butter can be unhealthy if you get it from a feedlot animal.
Hi, I am Heathar
With over 12 years experience as an alternative healer, integrative health coach and one who has been through severe physical injury trying every remedy under the sun to heal myself with no avail…I’m here to tell you, all of those things are not only attainable but are foundational to achieving optimal health and are core elements to overcoming all chronic and stubborn diseases.
At the age of 23 I suffered a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) preventing me from the ability to engage in physical activity for over 12 years post my car accident. Today, I know I could have recovered from this injury much quicker if I had known then what I know now! But….the accident lead me down the healing path. A path that I was destined to take to help myself heal and to learn how to help others heal complicated and chronic disorders as well.
During this time, I learned two things: How to harness the healing power of sunlight and how to utilize frequency based medicine to facilitate biological transformations in the body - all the way down to the mitochondrial level.
Today, I lead an active life and you can bet I’m uber passionate about teaching others how they can overcome even the most daunting health experiences that most medical professionals have band-aid solutions for, at best.
And today, my health continues to improve each day and I now lead an active, healthy lifestyle - all of which I thought would never be possible to achieve again. All it took was discovering the most effective path to health and healing to get me there and now, to help my clients get there as well!
Understanding Fats in Food, Point #4: When it comes to purchasing coconut oil, there’s a few things to pay attention to. Look for unrefined, organic, and virgin coconut oil in a glass bottle.
Let’s talk a bit about coconut oil, a tropical oil grown in strong UV light. Should this be an oil we focus on when there’s no UV light present in our area? Not in my perspective, especially for someone trying to heal from a disease like cancer or another chronic metabolic condition. When it comes to purchasing coconut oil, there are a few things to pay attention to. Make sure it’s in a glass bottle, that it’s organic and non-GMO, and unrefined. A lot of coconut oils today are refined, which means it’s much more processed. So look for unrefined, organic, virgin coconut oil, and a glass bottle. That’s what I highly recommend.
There are some good choices here in the states such as Nutiva, some even smaller co-ops offer raw coconut oil. Coconut oil also has a lower smoke point than saturated animal fats, because it doesn’t contain vitamin D, A, K2 that is in saturated animal fats. It can’t withstand a lot of heat, I would either gently heat it or I use it in my homemade mayonnaise. I love coconut-based mayonnaise since I’m not a big proponent for dairy. This way, you’re getting healthy fats, pasteurized eggs, and all the fats in the egg yolk, it can be a great way to utilize coconut oil.
The Bottom Line of Understanding Fats in Food: One of the Biggest Misconceptions in the Diet World
I hope this episode was enlightening and helpful in regards to your fat consumption and how to determine what healthy fats are for your diet and your healing process. Keep in mind if it’s liquid, keep it on the shelf. Go for the grass-fed saturated animal fats, grass-fed butter, pasture-raised, leaf lard, and tallows instead.
If you enjoyed this episode, I would appreciate it if you took one minute to rate and review. Each review helps more people just like you learn the deeper truths about health, healing, and what’s driving our epidemic rates of poor health today. Don’t forget to take a screenshot of the episode, share it on your Instagram stories, and tag me @sunlight_rx. Thanks for tuning in and see you next week!
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