Bad foods that are good for you
Yesterday's
list of surprisingly
bad foods might be a
shock to some of you, but
there's good news --- delicious foods you thought were forbidden which
are actually healthy. Here's the dirt on...
Cholesterol ---
Conventional wisdom holds that eating too much cholesterol causes heart
attacks. The truth is that our body needs cholesterol to create
sex hormones and to keep our cells, brain, and nervous system
healthy. Lack of cholesterol in the brain leads to depression,
agression, and suicide and very low levels of cholesterol is linked to
cancer. We can usually make cholesterol within our body if we
don't eat enough, and rising levels of cholesterol in our blood is an
indicator a bit like a fever. Artificially lowering high
cholesterol can do more harm than good since our bodies boosted the
cholesterol levels for a reason. Although mainstream doctors will
tell you differently, there are also some studies coming out that
indicate that folks with low cholesterol levels don't live as long or
as healthily as those with higher levels and people who die of heart
attacks often have low cholesterol levels. So eat as many eggs as
you want --- they're good for you. Just don't go for dried eggs
since oxidized cholesterol is trouble.
Good fats --- The fats
found in milk, cheese, butter, pastured animal meat, eggs, coconut oil,
lard, tallow, sesame oil, and rice bran oil are healthy for our bodies
since they provide omega-3s, essential fatty acids like conjugated
linoleic acid, and vitamin D in a form our bodies can consume.
Studies have shown that eating the right kinds of fat helps you lose
weight, increases insulin sensitivity, and builds muscle. While
eating saturated fat can increase our cholesterol levels, this
cholesterol is created in the body and is thus unoxidized, so it is
both harmless and helpful. Do be cautious to limit your sugar
while eating saturated fats so that the duo doesn't cause platelets to
aggregate.
Doesn't pastured lamb taste better than a
soyburger anyway? Maybe your body was trying to tell you
something when you started craving butter.
| This post is part of our Politically Incorrect Nutrition lunchtime
series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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It seems to me that there is ample historical evidence that humans can survive on a wide range of diets.
It could be that some diets are healthier than others, but my gut feeling is that compared to the effects of e.g. proper hygiene and healthcare, the effect of diet on lifespan increase over the last century or so has been relatively minor (provided you're not starving).