As promised here’s my article on my number two worst food that you really don’t want to put in your body (not if you want to be healthy that is), and if you currently are consuming this stuff, let me just say that if it were me, I’d stop – now.
Oils ain’t oils! Yep, you’ve been conned again by the large advertising budgets of (so called) ‘food’ companies out to take your money with no regard for truth or your health.
Margarine is nasty stuff. It’s history goes something like this -
It’s been around for over one hundred years. It used to be white and tasted something like lard. Not very palatable. Eventually, margerine manufacturers won the right to colour the stuff (the dairy board tried to stop them in the US – shame they lost!) and so it was coloured, flavoured and made to look and taste like butter, although it has never really tasted like butter in my opinion!
The marketing campaign started and did a great job of convincing everyone, including the medical profession, that margarine was the superior product. Saturated fats were given the big thumbs down and good old butter that has been used since the beginning of time was driven into a corner – the corner of the fridge in the supermarket that is, behind the mountains of margarine!
However, although margarine consumption has gone up over the years heart disease hasn’t gone down. Neither has obesity. In fact chronic dis-ease in all it’s forms has gone up.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not only margarine that’s to blame. There’s a whole barrage of foods and food additives out there that are causing these problems along with other lifestyle factors, but margarine sure isn’t helping! To start with it’s made from cheap, nasty oils that are heat extracted using petrochemical solvents – tasty!
Then it’s hydrogenated, to make it solid generally creating trans fats which will give you heart disease as well as other health issues, before having colourings, flavourings and who knows what else added to it.
Our bodies don’t know what to do with it! It’s not a real food. I’d like to point out that this also includes the latest marketing brilliance, which include Rice Bran oil (also heat extracted using Hexane which is a petrochemical product) and the cholesterol lowering margarines – they’re the same deal!
REAL FOOD is the stuff that’s been eaten by us forever. Butter is a real food – the cells in our bodies know how to deal with it. When it comes to food, as I keep saying, it’s just common sense. Eat what we’ve always eaten – that doesn’t mean for last 50 or 100 years. It means for the last 1000 years or more!
The fats and oils that have been consumed forever are butter, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, sesame oil, and palm oil. There are probably others that have been used throughout the ages also, but these ones have amazing health giving properties and are fairly easy to source. These fats are good for your body. Buy organic if possible and cold pressed oils always and your body will thank you for it.
Coconut oil in particular has amazing health benefits, including helping to regulate the thyroid gland – a fantastic and important benefit these days with all the chemicals we are exposed to that can alter our thyroid function and subtly (or not so subtly), but surely, impact our health. Virgin cold pressed coconut oil will help to keep your metabolism up to speed and so has the potential to help with weight control! Interesting huh?
I remember reading a story a while back that said that many years ago in the US, farmers decided to supplement feed given to stock with coconut oil as it was cheap and readily available at that time. Their livestock lost weight! That was not what they wanted, so they switched to grains to fatten them up. Now that’s interesting. What are we told to eat most of in the ‘food pyramid’ – grains – and we have an obesity epidemic? hmmmmmm.
Here’s a great link about coconut oil http://www.coconutdiet.com/weight_loss.htm
Anyway, I say throw that tub of margarine in the bin today, along with the 2 litre plastic bottles of canola oil, sunflower oil or whichever varieties litter your pantry and get back to using fats that your body’s cells are familiar with and you’ll be on your way to better health. Guaranteed!
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