Harmful Fats

5. Harmful Fats

5.1 Free Oils

The term free oils refers to those fats and oils which are separated from the foodstuffs in which they naturally occur. For instance, peanut oil is a free oil and likewise we can say that lard is a free oil (although somewhat solid).

Free oils in the diet are of vegetable, animal or chemical origin. Some of the free oils are definitely poisonous to the body. The others, while less harmful, have no place in the human diet.

5.2 Vegetable

Some examples of free vegetable oils are corn oil, olive oil, safflower oil, almond oil and the generic cooking oils which may be a mixture of vegetable oils and added chemicals. These are the most commonly used oils in the typical vegetarian diet which excludes all animal fats.

The fat content of these extracted oils is 100%. No proteins or carbohydrates are contained in these oils. Actually, very few minerals are present and only vitamins E and F are present in any amount. We see that these extracted oils are very lopsided nutritionally—they supply oil, but little else. They may be likened to white sugar or white flour as refined products.

In addition, these extracted oils are very susceptible to pesticide residues. Many of the free vegetable oils have chemicals added to them to prevent them from becoming cloudy or going rancid. Unfortunately, however, almost all free oil undergoes a certain amount of oxidation and becomes rancid regardless of the preservative methods used.

The great majority of all vegetable oils are heat-extracted. That is, they are raised to high temperatures in their manufacturing process in order to expel the oils from their vegetable sources. This heat causes a breakdown in the oil’s original composition which renders it nutritionally unfit.

Even most of the so-called “cold-pressed” oils sold in health food stores have had a certain amount of heat applied. Although the amount of heat used in these “expeller-pressed” oils (which is really what they are instead of “cold-pressed”), is somewhat lower than conventional methods, it is still high enough to destroy the oil’s original composition. Usually, only olive oil and avocado oil have any chance of being extracted without heating methods of some kind.

All free vegetable oils, with the exception of olive oil, have been added to the human diet only in the past hundred years. The human constitution is simply not adapted to handle these large quantities of free oils. .

Even olive oil, the traditional favorite of many health enthusiasts, cannot be recommended. Unless obtained from strictly organic sources, most, olive oil is mixed with other oils and petroleum products. These additives are considered normal by the government and no labeling of their presence is required.

No free oil, not even vegetable oils, should be included in a healthy diet.

5.3 Animal

The most common free animal oils are lard and butter. Strictly speaking, these are not pure oils or fats. Butter is about 87% fat, while lard is 94% fat. Because of their high fat content and their use outside of their naturally occuring sources (milk and meat), they will be discussed as examples of free animal oils.

The reasons for abstaining from animal free oils (or any animal fats) are basically the same as those for avoiding all animal products in the diet.

Like human beings, animals tend to store the accumulated pesticides, chemicals and additives from their diet in their fatty tissues. Consequently, lard and all animal fats are a concentrated reservoir of environmental poisons.

The animal fats are usually superheated during their extraction and tend toward rapid rancidity almost immediately.

Butter is usually colored and salted and is suspect to the hormonal and additive contamination from the cow.

Like all animal fats, the animal free oils are high in cholesterol which may eventually result in destruction of the cardiovascular system.

No free oil, and certainly not free animal fats, should be included in a healthy diet.

5.4 Chemical

This is a new one. Thanks to the synthetic food industries and the availability of petroleum by-products, free oils made from chemicals are being introduced into the diet. These chemical oils appear in ice cream, artificial coffee creams, artificial butter, etc.

Strangely enough, the people who consume these chemical oils often do so out of a concern for their health. They seek to avoid cholestrol and instead eat chemicals produced by the petroleum industries.

The plastic margarine and imitation coffee cream and ice cream that people eat may have a worse effect than the animal products they purport to replace. At least butter and cream have been a regular part of some people’s diet for hundreds of years. Most of these chemical oils have been on the market for less than ten years. No one has any idea as to the eventual harm they may cause.

The eating of these chemical oils is done to satisfy a purely psychological need. They are devoid of nutrition and undermine the body’s health.

No free oil, and absolutely never any chemical oils, should be included in a healthy diet.

5.5 Fats In Cooking

Although a lot of fat is consumed in the typical American diet in the form of free oils, the largest amounts of fat are consumed from eating those foods which have been cooked with fat.

French fries, potato chips, doughnuts, cakes, snack foods—almost all the “convenience” foods and junk foods eaten—contain high percentages of heated fats.

When fats and oils are heated to a high degree as in cooking or frying, they become carcinogenic—capable of causing cancer.  Healthy cells may become cancerous, that is, “go wild” if the diet is high in heated oils because heated oils are extremely toxic.

The digestive processes for the assimilation of fats require that the fats be emulsified. Fats that have been heated in cooking cannot be emulsified or digested. Since they cannot be used by the body, these overheated fats must be eliminated. Fats which have been subjected to a high degree of heat are difficult for the body to break down and expel. If the body has no use for a substance and cannot effectively eliminate it from the system, then the body stores the substance where it can do the least harm or walls it off by creating a tumor around it.

Besides the heated fats themselves, the foods that are saturated with these cooked fats are also indigestible and poisonous. Starches such as potatos, pastries, breads, etc. that are soaked in hot fat become impossible for the body to convert to sugar—the essential part of starch digestion. These foods then are worse than nutritionally useless since they also place a strain upon the body to eliminate them.

Any food values associated with oils or fats are lost when they are heated. As fats reach 350 degree temperatures, the standard range for frying and cooking, they begin to decompose totally and lose all their vitamins and minerals. They also prevent the absorption of any other fat-soluble vitamins and so contribute to the nutrient starvation of the body.