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Are you Fat Deficient?
A common mistake in West is to focus too much on lab work and quantitative information when it comes to our health. We have numbers for cholesterol, blood pressure, weight, and body mass index. Nutritionists obsess over caloric values, fat grams, protein grams and milligrams of vitamins and minerals. In doing so we often miss the subtle but powerful qualitative nature of food and our bodies.
Yes, of course, nutrients and lab values have their place. I pay attention to these myself. But even more important in many cases, are the energetic properties of food and one's yin-yang constitution. The energetic patterns in food when properly matched with one's constitution is really what changes tissue, heals disease, and keeps us alive.
Energetic properties includes characteristics such as the yang or warming nature of food, or the yin or cooling nature of a food, whether it creates mucous and dampness, (yin), or is drying (yang). Science and good old folk wisdom for example, show hot chicken soup (a yang food) can help heal someone suffering a head cold (a yin condition) in winter. There is something beyond the protein and minerals of the soup doing the job.
It wasn't until I began focusing on the energetic properties of foods and cooking techniques, that I really began seeing the health issues and well-being change for my clients.
Joan Adds Fat, Loses Weight
My first test case came years ago. Joan, a lively 35-year old redheaded RN came to me for weight loss advice. Joan was 75 pounds over her ideal weight. Her doctor was urging her to follow a low-fat diet and to take a statin drug to lower her cholesterol. She refused the drug and was gaining weight on a low-fat diet. One of the first changes we made was to her breakfast. Instead of fat-free blueberry muffins and cold cereal with skim milk I suggested eggs and bacon or vegetable omelets. I recommended replacing salad and skinless chicken breasts with grass fed meat , that she add b utter to her vegetables and to snack on nuts and cheese. Not only did she feel more satisfied, she immediately began losing weight and, her cholesteroldropped 30 points.
"Looks like you've finally been compliant with your medication," chirped her doctor at Joan's next checkup. She retorted, "I actually stopped taking my meds and, thanks to my nutritionist, I am eating eggs, bacon, steak and butter."
It's official: The "fat-is-bad" message most of us grew believing, is false. Harvard School of Public Health reports, "Detailed research – much of it done at Harvard – shows that the total amount of fat in the diet, whether high or low, isn't really linked with disease." In fact, researchers found s aturated fats may help reduce risk of heart disease.
A review of 21 studies on diet and heart disease published in the British Medical Journal in 2002 reports not a single death has been prevented by low fat diets. Early studies, including the 1998 Second International Conference on Fats and Oil Consumption in Health and Disease reported low-fat diets actually induced arteriosclerosis (Am Jr of Clin Nutr, 1998;67:497S-9S). Such studies are not often cited by physicians, nor were they included in my nutrition texts.
The Women's Health Initiative, a study of 49,000 women, reported in 2006 that low-fat diets do nothing for weight loss nor do they prevent heart attacks, breast or colon cancers, or stroke. In fact, women with heart disease who switched to low-fat eating, experienced a 26 percent increase in heart disease deaths. According to Harvard's web site, this is "the final nail in the coffin" for low-fat diets.
Where does that leave us? It leaves at least 60% of Americans with signs of fat deficiency.
Fat Benefits
According to Chinese medicine, fat-rich foods support our yin aspect: our moist, soft, feminine qualities: our mucous membranes, skin and hair oils, hormones, sexual "juices," and the moisture that keeps our tissues, organs and bones supple, youthful and healthy.
This yin quality of fat also provides us a sense of security, of slowing down, of groundedness. Fats moisten our tissues and carry nutrients into the nervous system. These nutrients enable us to make brain chemicals that calm us and keep us from depression. A person getting adequate fat-rich traditional foods enjoys a feeling of calm focus, sound sleep, and a deep well of energy.
Research confirms Eastern beliefs, finding beneficial fats, with their fat-soluble nutrients, orchestrate virtually every function in the body, from hormone and immune health, to mucous membrane and eye health and mood-balancing brain chemicals. This role of fat is what makes it one of the top foods for boosting metabolism.
Women Need More Fat
Women, more than most men, live longer and lose weight easier with high-fat diets than with low-fat diets. The Women's Health Initiative confirms women enjoy no upside (including weight loss) to sacrificing fat-rich foods. In women, blood cholesterol levels rise when they eat less saturated fat and cholesterol (Europ Jr Clin Invest, 1999;29:827-34).
Fat and Health Throughout the World
The French, Greeks, Spanish, Inuit, Masai of Africa, Swiss and other cultures have thrived on diets withover 40 percent of calories from fat, much of it animal fat. The butter-loving French and Swiss vie for the top three longest-lived countries. The world's longest lived women live in Toulouse, the duck fat, foie gras capital of France.
Good Fats, Bad Fats
Surprisingly many of the fats we've been lead to believe are fattening and clogging our arteries are the very fats that have brought heart health, strength and vitality to diverse world populations for thousands of years. Disease-fighting nutrients come from traditional fats, including whole eggs, cheese, nuts, cream, chicken skin, organ meats, fatty fish, duck and goose fat and/or lard. The key here is to get your dairy and meats from healthy, grass-fed animals. Such healing fats are valued and sought after by the world's longest-lived populations (Research reported in 1939 by Weston A. Price, DDS).
Clearly there are dangerous fats. Take margarine. The National Academy of Sciences says NO amount is safe. This and other trans fats are far worse than we ever imagined saturated fats to be, causing more than 30,000 premature deaths per year, according to Walter Willet, MD, a Harvard researcher. A close second to margarine are the modern vegetable oils poured with confidence on salads and into sauté pans. It turns out these "heart healthy" oils are clouding our bloodstreams with highly fattening, age-speeding chemicals (Lancet, 1994;344:1195-96).
Naturally fat-rich foods enable us to not just avert disease, but to thrive physically, emotionally and mentally. Are you choosing the right fats?
Signs and Symptoms of a Natural Fat Deficiency
- Allergies, Asthma
- Anxiety, lack of groundedness
- Irritability
- Bone weakness: osteoporosis, osteopenia
- Brittle nails
- Constipation
- Cravings for sugar or fat
- Dry or "alligator" skin, cracked heels
- Dry hair, dandruff
- Dry eyes or throat
- Earwax build-up
- Eczema
- Excessive thirst
- Fatigue
- High Blood pressure
- High cholesterol and/or triglyceride
- Hyperactivity, ADD, ADHD
- Infections
- Learning and memory problems
- Low blood sugar, elevated insulin
- Raynaud's syndrome
- Violent behavior
- Vision problems: night blindnessv
- Weight loss difficulty, especially abdominal weight