www.sustainablebalance.ca
This will be my last post about food for a while as I have a whole array of other topics to talk about. Next will be sleep, but I wanted to finish this series on food I’ve been doing.
Are all foods created equal? Does it matter?
Is organic better? Is it
worth stressing about? I know fat
is good, but what kind of fats? Let
us begin:
Veggies/Fruits:
Go to farmer’s markets (when they’re in season) for the
freshest seasonal stuff. If it’s
local, it’s much more likely to have been fresh picked and not sitting on a
truck and then a fridge for days/weeks.
It’s going to have highest nutrient value, and most importantly, it’s
going to taste the best. Even
better: grow your own! At least to
some degree, why not?
Grocery stores are just fine though, and there are different
options there. Organic is good,
but it doesn’t HAVE to be organic.
From the studies I’ve seen, organic is typically more nutritious, but
not always by enough to justify being neurotically religious about it. Just wash your veggies/fruits, and
conventional produce is still produce (ie: WAY better than donuts). Your best bet is to find places that
sell “natural”, so you know that it’s only mildly contaminated with chemicals, and
you’re not paying the premium for the “organic” label (specific produce stores
are good for this). Sometimes the
organic stuff is incredible, but sometimes it’s a bit of a rip-off. Just get fresh stuff and wash it.
Frozen stuff is a great compromise. They’re usually frozen at their peak of
ripeness, and retain most of their nutrition. Fresh tastes better, but having some frozen veggies/berries
around is super handy and still pretty good. Frozen berries in smoothies are fantastic. See my last post for a dynamite
smoothie recipe.
Include variety.
The more veggies/fruits you try and learn to enjoy, the more options
you’ll have. That way, whatever is
in season and cheapest becomes your selection.
Nuts are expensive, but are typically cheaper if you buy
them in bulk. I don’t recommend
eating TONS of nuts and seeds (unless properly soaked/sprouted, which is a pain)
since they do contain a dose of anti-nutrients, and are high in poly-unsaturated fatty acids (see below). A handful or two is great as a satisfying protein-and-fat
packed snack, but that’s all they should ever be (or maybe a topping on a
dessert). Macadamias are my
favourite! Coincidentally, they
are usually the most expensive. I
was in Australia where they are native (and thus somewhat cheaper), and holy
crap they were addictive.
Animals:
This is probably more important. You’re going to start getting a lot more of your calories
from animal products since you are NO LONGER AFRAID OF FAT. As an aside: don’t fear cholesterol
either. If you don’t eat
cholesterol, your liver will produce it for you, keeping the total amount of it
relatively constant. Cholesterol
is very important, and is necessary for our survival. Cholesterol turns into plaque and can cause obstruction only where there is chronic inflammation,
so control your inflammation (with proper diet and stress control), and don’t
fear your friend cholesterol. For
more info, read this.
I’ll start this off by saying that FACTORY FARMS SUCK. They’re gross. Stressed out animals are all crammed in
together eating unnatural foods (for them), and are loaded up with antibiotics
(because they’re SICK) and growth hormones. Not only does this negatively effect the surrounding
environment, but this also results in lower-quality and somewhat toxin-ridden
food for us. As meat-eaters in
modern society, it’s hard to avoid this stuff completely. At most restaurants this is what you’re
getting (definitely at fast food joints, and even at “fancier” ones). This is why I typically try not to go
to restaurants much, but will compromise and go sometimes for social and
convenience reasons (like a “normal” person, as they say). Another reason I avoid restaurants is
that a lot of them use liberal amounts of the industrial seed oils for cooking
(canola, soy, corn, etc).
Especially in the deep fryer (it should be beef fat! Or coconut
oil). Gross. I do find myself eating (and enjoying…)
this stuff when there isn’t a better choice though. The world ain’t perfect, but we can try our damndest to
support the good guys more. There
are ways to responsibly eat animals.
Most of the big grocery stores will have “natural”, “hormone
and antibiotic free”, and for the big-spenders “organic”. These are all a step-up from factory
farms, but do cost more to produce since it has to be done (currently) on a
smaller scale. For beef
specifically, the best for us, for the cattle, and for the environment is fully
grass-fed and grass-finished.
Produces the best product: a healthy, natural cow/steer. It can be tough to find, and you’ll pay
big if you buy it one steak at a time.
For this reason, my number one tip for eating all animals is to BUY A
FREEZER and ORDER DIRECTLY FROM NATURAL FARMERS. You get the best products (in taste AND nutrition) at the
cheapest prices (down below $5 a pound depending on the animal and provider). You can find these people at farmer’s
markets, or on the internet. Just
google your city and whatever animal you’re looking for. You can usually get ~20 pound sampler
packs, or you can go big and get a quarter/half/whole animal. You get to learn how to cook all sorts
of great animal parts!!! You
usually get an organ or two with your order, and I must say, these are actually
the most nutritious parts of the animal!
Look for a good recipe and try them out. Heart is the easiest to start with as it tastes like meat
(wait…it IS meat!). Liver tastes
like…liver. Liver goes great
chopped up real small with ground meat though. You can make bone broth out of
the bones too, which is CRAZY nutritious, and hella good in all sorts of
recipes. Get creative, and don’t
be a wuss.
If you don’t want to take that plunge, then find a good
grocery store, or my favourite: a great butcher shop! They might have bulk order packs to save even more
money. The cheapest bet for
“normal” meat (aka muscle meat), and what I use a lot of, is ground meats. You can put this stuff in
anything. I’ll show a couple
options below. Then there’s the
tougher whole cuts. These usually
have to be marinated before being good, or slow cooked. Always Google it to know how to cook
it! The pricey stuff rules, but is
pricey. Save it for special
occasions, or just be baller. It’s
up to you. For chicken,
which is pretty cheap, the best thing to do is buy WHOLE CHICKENS. That’s usually $2-$4 a pound as opposed
to up to $12 a pound for boneless/skinless/worthless. I eat LOTS of ground meats, sausages,
and whole chickens due to cheapness.
I have tricks for making it great.
See my meal ideas if you’re interested.
Fats and Oils:
This stuff is fun.
Since really starting to understand nutrition, I’ve put a lot of time
into learning the biochemistry of all the different macronutrients, and most
notably that of fat. I’m planning
a more in depth post I’m currently calling “The layman’s guide to fatty-acid
chemistry” (I swear this will be interesting…to me), but for now I’ll just
briefly discuss the different types of edible fats that are good for human
consumption and basically how to use them and where to get them. All fats contain a mix of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The relative amounts of each type
determine a fat’s fatty acid profile. The fatty acid profiles determine which
situation the fats should be used in.
For cooking (heat!):
You want fats that contain mostly saturated fatty acids for situations where you’ll be applying a lot
of heat. These are typically solid
at room temperature. Now, there
are “artificially” saturated fats that are usually labeled “hydrogenated
vegetable oil” or, at least SOMETHING hydrogenated. This is the process of taking liquid (at room temperature)
fats, and through the chemical process of hydrogenation (yes, hydrogen is
involved) turning them solid. The
result is mutant gunk that we should not consume, but most of us unknowingly
do. I hate to shock you bakers out
there (actually, I truly enjoy it), but Crisco is exactly that: hydrogenated
vegetable oil. Avoid it. Use lard like the old days!!! Or screw baking in general (I’m cool
with that, but most people are not…).
So, good cooking oils:
- Butter
- Coconut oil
- Palm oil (sort of like coconut oil, but slightly less
saturated)
- Animal fats (lard, bacon fat, beef tallow, duck fat etc.)
Butter can easily be purchased at any grocery store. The best of the best comes from a
grass-fed cow, but that can be tricky to find. Any good quality butter will do for cooking though. Coconut oil can now be found at most
grocery stores, and certainly at any decent health food store, but it’s
expensive (and awesome). The best
bet if you like coconut oil is to buy a gallon off of a distributor like
Tropical Traditions. A
gallon lasts me six months, and doesn’t go bad since it’s so stable. Chemistry! Same goes for palm oil. Animal fats can be purchased from butchers, or can be
collected yourself! Leftover bacon
fat? Now it’s cooking fat. Same goes for fats from all meats (FROM HEALTHY ANIMALS!!!). Stop trimming it off! It’s great!
And, for very light sautéing, there is the ever-popular and easy-to-find olive oil. This stuff contains mostly monounsaturated fatty acids (read: only
one unsaturation, so it’s a liquid, but just barely). Don’t get this stuff
super hot for a long time, but use for light sautés, as the flavour rules. More unsaturated fatty acids below.
For
dressings/toppings:
Here’s where we step into liquid. Fats that contain mostly mono- and poly-unsaturated fatty
acids aren’t as resistant to heat (wussies!), but are nutritious
nonetheless. By “less resistant” I mean they "oxidize" and produce a bunch of toxic and inflammatory free-radicals when exposed to lots of heat and/or light. These
include olive oil, avocado oil, all nut/seed oils, fish oils, and the
industrial seed oils.
Eliminate the industrial seed oils completely (or as much as possible –
no soy, canola, or corn oil), but you can use the others somewhat liberally as they are less processed, and as a result there is WAY less oxidative damage in the form of free-radicals. Mono-unsaturated fatty acids are
fantastic for energy, but too much poly-unsaturated can lead to problems. This is why nuts shouldn’t be a HUGE
part of your diet, but are good and nutritious in moderation (think a few
handfuls a week, and occasionally more of a splurge).
Olive oil is really easy to find (make sure it’s not mixed
with canola) almost anywhere, and the others are generally at higher-end
grocery stores and good health food stores. They’re not hugely necessary, but are good enough, and add
variety and delicious flavour to foods.
An aside on fish oils: these provide certain "omega-3" poly-unsaturated fatty acids that provide tons of health benefits. I recommend a good fish oil supplement if you don't eat fatty fish on a regular basis. Nuts provide "omega-6", which is also essential, but we tend to get waaaay too much of it.
As always, Mark Sisson does a better job of talking about
fats than I do:
Okay, enough about food! Next post will be about another huge part (and often
sub-prioritized) part of your health: SLEEEEPPPPP!!!!!!!!
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