Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to eat more fat.
Level of Commitment: Baby Steps
I have a few more weeks of Back to Basics Monday Missions for you, but this one just can’t be missed.
I’m always tickled when a reader tells me they’ve been around since the Fat Full Fall, one of my very early series here at KS. It’s packed with a lot of good information, including a handy printable chart detailing what fats to use for which purposes.
So at the end of a month during which store ads are plastered with weight loss products, gyms have a rush of new members, and the body image gimmicks are at an all-time high, let us eat fat (and know that it won’t make us fat).
If this is a new (or insane) concept to you, check out my article entitled "7 Reasons to Eat More Fat" for the low-down quickie version of the Fat Full Fall. Click HERE for all 7 reasons (no. 7 is my favorite; you’ll see why!).
Giveaway Winner
Out of 564 entries for the Plan it – Don’t Panic giveaway, the winner is:
Audrey Cole
Congrats, Audrey – the book is on its way!
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If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.
Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
See my full disclosure statement here.
As part of my real food transition, I’ve gone through A LOT of fat this month. About 20 oz of coconut oil, 3 pounds of butter, and reduced my lard stash by about two cups!
Even though I have been eating a few “less healthy for me items,” my weight has remained steady and I haven’t felt hungry on my higher fat days. Yay for good stuff!
I have beef tallow on order this week, to try a new fat!
I also used the last of my walnut oil, so I can break into my fancy olive oil next 
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I just read Nina Planck’s books about eating real fat, including butter, coconut oil, raw milk and more. The more I learn about how processing our foods makes it more likely to stick to our sides, I’ll take the old school fats any day.
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I just saw the new Mission Impossible move this past weekend so after reading the leading line of your post, I was hooked!
Nuts and nut butters are my favorite form of healthy fat!
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Funny thing– when I switched from 2% to whole milk a few years ago, I promptly lost about 5 lbs. Not that I particularly needed to (affordable size 2 pants are hard to find, and 0s even harder…) but it’s not all that bad a thing.
When friends have asked me how I lost so much weight (from 200+ lbs to 125), they can see how eliminating HFCS would help. But when I talk about using lard and butter and whole milk and the like, they get a look on their faces like you’re telling them that the sky is green and up is down. Sometimes I think we’ve all been brainwashed….
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Katie Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Sharon,
Katie
You’re so right!
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lizi Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
i always have an easy time finding smaller sizes at thrift stores, in fact seems like an abundance of anything size 4 and under. makes me glad to have inherited a petite frame, and the loads of good fats i’m eating keep it thin
i agree when i switched the whole milk and started using more and more butter, i noticed a flatter tummy. must be because my body wasn’t starving anymore!
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Sharon Reply:
January 31st, 2012 at 10:05 am
Unfortuneately, smaller sizes at the thrift stores in my neighborhood are very rare. Of course, there aren’t many people at a healthy weight on this side of town to donate… Consignment stores are better– but they are all in not very bike-accesible locations. Oh well. Every now and then I resort to using the car.
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AmandaonMaui Reply:
February 10th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
You’re on point. People understand that HFCS is bad, but they can’t grasp that healthy fats are good (and they can’t understand what fats are healthy and why the ones they’ve been told are healthful are not).
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We’ve always eaten “healthy” according to the great food marketing out there. We converted to using real foods and fats last September…butter, coconut oil, olive oil, raw milk, and pastured eggs from the farm. In six weeks, my husband’s cholesterol dropped 100 points. 217 baby!
He has been on meds since before we married and even with the meds he has never experienced such a drop. The lowest it has ever been is 290.
The doctor could not believe it especially after we told him all the good foods and fats we had been eating. But he told us to keep it up.
Go figure!
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Katie Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Holy wow fabulous! That’s the kind of story I LOVE to hear!
Katie
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lizi Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
wow good for him!!!!
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AmandaonMaui Reply:
February 10th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
It’s so nice when doctors don’t bash a good change, even if it is inconsistent with the minimal nutritional information gleaned during medical school.
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I read an article over the weekend that will probably be buried in the back of every major newspaper in the country. Our gov’t in all of its stupidity, is banning whole milk from school lunches starting in the fall of 2012.
Now, I’m not a pasteurized milk fan by any means, but sometimes the crappy milk at school is all some kids GET in the way of somewhat healthy fats, and now they have to choose from 2% or 1% or skim.
But they have no problem serving “plastic in a tub” (known as margarine) vs real butter, or chicken nuggets containing plastic polymers and MSG.
Lord, where are we headed?? I’m sure glad all three of my kids are adults and this is not a problem I have to face. I had enough trouble with schools back when my kids attended, but this would have put me over the edge. My kids took lunches from home, drank raw goat milk or cow milk, depending on what we had on hand, and never mentioned it to a soul (on instructions from their Mom!) and other kids used to beg for a drink.
So sad.
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Katie Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Oy! I don’t see whole milk very much around here anyway, but there must be places where it’s available at school lunch, or our legislators wouldn’t have wasted their time making the law…ahem…right? Phooey on that. What a dumb law. You bet they should ban trans fats, at LEAST, before they mess with milk!
Sigh, sigh, sigh,
Katie
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Is expeller pressed Grapeseed oil bad for you? We use it when searing or frying.
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Katie Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Neveen,
Grapeseed oil is one of those that has some controversy surrounding it – I’ve never taken the time to look into it deeply myself, because I know it’s kind of pricey, so I just went with “ignore it” which was the easy way out.
It’s my understanding that basically grapeseed oil is high in omega-6s, which is why they’re often on the bad side of the chart. However: for folks whose diets are already low in omega-6s because they avoid soy and corn oils, buying the well-processed grapeseed oil is probably not a bad thing. I do often wish I had another liquid option for a quick pour into the pan and cringe when I default to EVOO, knowing I should keep that temp so low…
I know Kelly the Kitchen Kop has some resources on grapeseed…
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Neveen Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Thank Katie,
We do steer clear of soy, corn and canola oil and only use the grapeseed oil for high temperature cooking. It is pricey but we don’t use it all that often. I haven’t ventured into the world of tallow yet but I’m thinking about it. I also have red palm oil but, to be honest, don’t like the taste of it. And I don’t really know what to do with it.
This is a great post with great timing. I always have to remind myself to eat more healthy fats now that I’m pregnant. Bring on the butter and coconut oil!
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D. Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Why not make ghee? It’s such an easy answer and it’s also easy to make.
Also, avocado oil is great for high-temp cooking. I also use it, occasionally, in my homemade mayo. I’ve also used grapeseed oil, but the stuff I had was pretty flavorful so it was a bit overwhelming. That was the Napa Valley brand. I think grapeseed oil is fine if you only use it occasionally on a salad in a vinaigrette or something.
I just ordered some Hemp Seed Oil and some Macadamia nut oil from Mt. Rose Herbs. The hemp seed oil is lovely (nutty) and the macadamia is iffy, IMPHO. I don’t like macadamia’s in the first place but thought I’d give the oil a fair shot. To me it smells rancid from the get-go, just as most olive oils do. It didn’t taste too bad, but it’s not a choice I’d make again, probably.
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lizi Reply:
January 30th, 2012 at 8:14 pm
i know it may not be helpful to say “i read somewhere, but can’t remember exactly where”, but anyhow, i read on some raw food website about about you should always buy macadamia nuts in the shell because they go rancid REALLY fast, which seems right on, because every time i see them in a bulk bin, or anywhere else, they always smell rancid. too bad! i have had fresh macadamias when my aunt lived in hawaii and OMG they were divine, just imagine them covered in dark chocolate coconut oil sauce…goodness!!
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AmandaonMaui Reply:
February 10th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Getting mac nuts out of the shell is an extremely difficult task. I live on Maui, and my partner grew up cracking mac nuts. He said that it was tough work. While work (and freshness) may make the mac nut taste better, it might not be worth it.
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lizi Reply:
February 13th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
i figured that they were difficult to de-shell, as you never find them that way. so unfortunately us on the mainland will probably not get to indulge in raw mac nuts often, as they not only taste terrible rancid they are very unhealthy that way
i stay away from rancid nuts like i stay away from wesson oil and crisco.
strange how i used to eat stale/rancid nuts on occasion and just thought they weren’t “as fresh”. especially the stuff you buy at the grocery store in little baggies next to the sprinkles and spices, those are never very fresh. luckily in MO we have walnuts and pecans, and i highly recommend ordering almonds straight from CA (google it)- that way they are truly raw, as everything you get on the shelf, while labeled raw, is actually pastuerized/irradiated. bleh. so soaking/sprouting won’t eliminate those phytates. frankly we don’t eat all that many nuts and seeds as we used to, because i have read varying reports on the level that soaking/sprouting reduces phytates- some say you have to ferment them too. geez might as well take away my birthday ;P but on a side note i really do feel better (in my tum) not noshing on so much nuts anymore, so maybe it is for the better…sigh!
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I used to be the “Fat-free” only person a decade ago, but then realized that companies use nasty fillers to make the taste comparable. Now it’s full fat for me. Thanks for your post!
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One of the best things I ever did for my self and several of my friends, was read and recommend the book Health At Every Size by Dr. Linda Bacon.
It is truly an excellent, well-written, well-referenced book about human beings and their wrong-headed desires. Fat-free mentality is one of the wrong-headed ideas still floating around out there. It will never change unless people read this book or a web site like these Nutrient Dense sites, because the gov’t has their nose in everything. Why do people think the gov’t knows what best for all of us??? I’ve never been able to figure that one! A more stupid, plastic bunch of people I hope never to come across in the whole of my life. The gov’t and modern medicine know nothing about food, nothing about nutrition, and less about humans than any other entities I can think of, off-hand. Yet they are the ones making the rules. That idea has to stop. Please get and read her book, just for the self-esteem of it! You won’t be sorry.
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