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Nina Teicholz is an investigative science journalist and author. Her international bestseller, “The Big Fat Surprise,” has upended the conventional wisdom on dietary fat–especially saturated fat. It was named a 2014 *Best Book* by The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Mother Jones, and Library Journal. Teicholz is also the Executive Director of The Nutrition Coalition, a non-profit group that promotes evidence-based nutrition policy.
Yet if we look at human history, we consumed much more omega 3 fats and much less omega 6 fats than we currently do, since wild foods are very rich in omega 3 fats. The main source of omega 3’s today is fish, yet wild game and wild plants, which are very high in omega 3s, used to be a much bigger part of our diet.
Wild meat and grass-fed beef contain about 7 times as much omega 3 fats as industrially raised animals, which have almost none. Virtually all of the beef and animal products your great grandparents ate were pasture-raised, organic, grass-fed, and contained no hormones or antibiotics. There was simply no other kind of meat to eat.
Introducing refined oils into our diet and moving away from grass-fed and wild animals increased our omega 6 fat intake. Corn, soy, cottonseed, and canola oils skyrocketed, while omega 3 fats have dramatically declined. In that surge, many Americans sadly became deficient in these essential omega 3 fats.
Omega 6 fats not only fuel your body’s inflammatory pathways, but also reduce availability of anti-inflammatory omega 3 fats in your tissues, resulting in more inflammation.
In other words, omega 6 fats undo any benefit eating omega 3s would normally give you. They also reduce conversion of plant-based omega 3 fats (called alpha-linolenic acid or ALA) into the active forms of omega 3s called EPA and DHA by about 40 percent.
Consuming too many omega 6 fats also increases the likelihood of inflammatory diseases and links to mental illness, suicide, and homicide. In fact, studies have shown a connection of mental health with inflammation in the brain.
https://drhyman.com/blog/2016/01/29/why-oil-is-bad-for-you/Eric, pls allow me to say that all the above has to be taken with a huge barrel of salt and is part of the present-day craze on butter, animal fats and the carnivore diet.
Nina Teicholz wrote a book that humors the anti-establishment views of many Americans who like to eat their beef steak, their butter-laden donuts and so on.
The fact that the book is anti-establishment and that went on the first page of the New York Times does not necessarily mean that it tells the truth.
As a matter of fact, I've been following those discussions, I've listened to luminaries on various credible podcasts and there is no evidence that beef and butter are not a cause of atherosclerosis, conducive to heart and brain disease and sometimes to death. Simple chemistry is undeniable, beef, butter, wholefat cheese, contain elevated amounts of saturated fats that boost the production of cholesterol, especially ApoB particles, which according to all lipidologists is the cause of atherosclerosis, if present in high concentrations in the blood.
The beef industry and the dairy industry hire some of the best marketers in the world. They know how to manipulate people and how to take advantage of and support narratives favorable to their sales.
To answer to Steve:
What's bad in soybean oil? Nothing in particular, except the excess of it which is used in some of the junk food products.
What's bad in corn syrup? Here, I would say it's not something to indulge in. It's a concentration of sugars and fructose, whose excess, in overweight people, may cause fatty liver disease. If you are lean and have a good glucose tolerance, then it won't harm you much. But please check your fasting blood glucose (also HbA1C and blood glucose 2 hours after a meal with carbohydrates).
