FAT!

Last night I went to the in-store talk at Rebecca’s by Susan Dunlap: Butter is Better! (learning about healthy fats). If you’ve ever been into Rebecca’s you’ve probably seen Susan’s smiling face, she’s been there doling out healthy advice for 20 years and has over 30 years of natural food and nutrition experience! She’s a really wonderful speaker who is clearly full of tips that would make us all a little healthier.

The basic premise of her talk, as I understood it, is that we should be eating the “foods that have sustained people over long periods of time” which means that we need a balance between saturated and unsaturated fats. Saturated fats (butter, cream, whole milk, even lard) are NOT the evil, body destroying creatures that our society generally considers them to be.

I can’t even really begin to go over her whole talk because I’m sure I could never do it justice, but I’d like to give a few interesting bullet points, facts and definitions that I learned.

-Crisco was invented in 1911 and marks the beginning of processed fats in our society.

-Trans fatty acids “are a type of fat molecule produced by a process called “partial hydrogenation,” which rearranges the hydrogen atoms in an unsaturated fatty acid to produce a fat that is solid at room temperature.” (definition from The Weston A. Price Foundation)

-Our brain is mostly fat! Saturated fats help solidify cells, especially brain cells! BUT, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated saturated fats don’t fit into our receptors in the same way as natural saturated fats because the molecules themselves have been modified and transformed by human interference…they have been literally blasted full of hydrogen (yikes).

-Two grams of trans fat is the maximum that the body can handle and get rid of. By law, products can be labeled as “0 Trans Fat” if they have .5g or less…that means if you have 4 Oreos which each contain .5g of trans fat, you’ve already hit your max! Many McDonald’s meals contain 30 or more grams of trans fat!

-Butter is anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-carcinogenic and contains CLAs.

-CLAs (Conjugated Lineolic Acids) help with weight loss, build muscle mass and help fight off cancer. They are found in high concentrations in grass-fed beef (all ruminants really-think Wolf Creek beef or Wild Oats lamb/pork) as well as free-range eggs/chickens (Davis Creek, Polyface, Meadow Run).

-Fats coat the lining of your intestines, which helps your body absorb vitamins and minerals. This is why humans traditionally put salad dressing (a fat) on salad (high in vitamins/minerals) or bacon grease in collards. For the same reason, French fries are MUCH better for you (still only as a treat) when cooked in beef fat (YUM)! Along the same lines, vitamins A and D are actually in the fats of milk…which means whole milk (especially when it comes from grass-fed cows full of CLAs) is actually better for you than skim!

-Good fats (like chicken skin) actually make you feel more satiated as well so you eat less!

SO! That was just a small selection of the facts I found interesting, but if you’d like to know more, stop by Rebecca’s and talk to Susan…I think I’m going home to cook some beef fat French fries now.

Happy (Cozy) Chickens

Dear gray clouds and soft white stuff outside my window,

Thank you. This is what a snowstorm should be. BEAUTIFUL. Thank you for starting in the wee hours of the morning instead of right at rush hour like the last jerk of a storm. I’ve decided that this is the perfect day to catch up on my internet news (if G-reader could overflow mine would be spilling out all over my computer right about now…).

I’ll be sending out some links to the best food articles tomorrow, but in the meantime, I want to show you the blog of a 13 year old committed vegetarian boy who raises chickens and bees and may just become the next Michael Pollan or Joel Salatin (both of whom he writes about). His blog, Happy Chickens Lay Healthy Eggs, is a compilation of links and personal stories from fun foodie articles (how to make your own seedling newspaper cups) to incredibly serious links about Monsanto’s GMO corn all interspersed with some really beautiful photography (mostly of chickens). I’m so impressed with kids these days. Only 13? Really? With kids like this around I really believe our world will be okay after all.

While we’re talking about happy chickens, I want to send a quick shout-out (and thank you) to Tim and Elizabeth DiChiara at Davis Creek Farms. Most people have heard about Joel Salatin and how happy Polyface chickens are, but there are many other ‘unsung heros’ out there, like the folks at Davis Creek. Their chickens are raised in hoop houses in small groups and moved to fresh pasture daily where they consume a diet consisting of at least thirty percent grass and bugs foraged in the field, the rest consists of antibiotic-free, locally produced grains. Having raised chickens most of my life, I think it’s pretty safe to say that these chickens live in chicken paradise.

Stay warm and safe out there, friends.