I am currently reading An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases by Moises Velasquez-Manoff. In a nutshell, it is about how the decreasing biodiversity of our environment is creating more disease. It is about how our agricultural methods, sanitation methods, and compulsive cleaning have in very short order eliminated many of the microorganisms and parasites that we evolved to deal with. Continue reading
immune systemTag Archives
Choosing dietary fats
Dietary fats are not all the same. Some can be harmful while others are quite healthy. Some contribute to inflammation, some ease it. Omega-3 in particular is noted for its anti-inflammatory properties. I definitely would NOT recommend vegetable oil such as from soy or corn. It contains too much omega-6 fat, which causes inflammation. That type of fat will also suppress your immune system and contribute to cancer. I don’t tend to eat much of those at all, unless I’m eating in a restaurant that prepares the food with vegetable oils. I don’t use them at home. Animal fat from pasture-raised meat and dairy, olive oil, and coconut oil don’t contain much omega-6, so they should all be fine. In fact, these kinds of oils can help the immune system and protect against cancer. The type of fats you choose will make a difference in weight as well. Pig farmers tried using coconut oil to fatten their pigs. It didn’t work. The pigs stayed lean. Then they switched to vegetable oil, and the pigs got fat.
Do we really need five a day?
I’m currently reading Trick And Treat – how ‘healthy eating’ is making us ill by Barry Groves. Barry Groves has taken a close look at many studies. Often, the abstracts on the medical journal articles do not agree with what the data presented in the article would indicate. Also, some recommendations have no basis in research. One of those recommendations is the Five a Day advice for fruits and vegetables. Studies have shown that two a week is sufficient to get maximum benefit. I like vegetables enough that I’ll keep eating them anyway. As for fruits, they contain fructose, the most harmful of sugars. Their value is questionable when the nutrition they contain can just as easily be gotten from vegetables. Fructose is the sugar that causes belly fat. Fructose is also the sugar most detrimental to the immune system, though the other simple sugars aren’t far behind. Another source I’ve seen said that fructose is metabolized in the liver the same way that alcohol is, and we know what alcohol can do to the liver. Table sugar and high fructose corn syrup are about half fructose, which makes them dangerous, too. Barry Groves’ site: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk