"Dark Calories" book by Dr. Cate now out: dangers of vegetable oils
 

I tried to find the thread which let me preorder the book, without any success, so here it is, now available:

Dark Calories: How Vegetable Oils Destroy Our Health and How We Can Get It Back

I've been a fan of her blog for years, so I'm pleased her message is getting out in a book. Written with her inimitable style and verve, it's been a pleasure to read.

Throughout, she shares the mysterious illness which threatened her ability to walk, which her fellow doctors only worsened, with well-meaning but useless drugs and procedures.

I know what that feels like. Her focus on vegetable oils creates a built-in "health shortcut," seems to me. When I started avoiding them, I was also avoiding a lot of other junk that wasn't good for me.

This is not food. It's for lubricating machines!

Was it this one?

Dark Calories: How Vegetable Oils Stole Our Health


From Dr Cate's latest newsletter:

Yes, thanks!

Dark Calories sounds like a great companion to Good Energy by Dr Casey Means. Dr Means' Simple rules start with the three things to remove from the diet, and many low carbers with paleo leanings do well at already reducing all three.

But then she writes about the five things to ADD to your diet to have Good Energy …this part is what took me and many others ten years to figure out!

Looking forward to reading it once I've finished Good Energy :D

Max Lugavere's latest podcast:

Why Seed Oils Are Destroying Our Health, According to This Doctor | Cate Shanahan, MD

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podca...fe/id1379050662

https://open.spotify.com/show/5Wkdj...f6b96010d68442e

.

I recently regained, gulp, 30#, and now that its summer and shorts weather, i noticed NO cellulite. Actually, some, but very little. Gotta look hard for it!!

I credit dropping all vegetable oils, ie corn oil, safflower, canola, almost 4 years ago. And relying on EVOO, butter, beef fat, and other animal fats.

Eager to read this book!!

I've been reading Dr Cate for years, and she's always been about removing seed oils because she feels it's a neglected angle, and I agree.

Her writing about their connection with inflammation was the first "anti-inflammatory diet" change I made. With great improvement. That was very convincing.

She's a good writer, even with the technical bits. But to simplify: these industrial oils create cell membranes that can't do the job as well. Like diluting your cement mix with styrofoam, because it's cheaper.

As one can imagine, this leads to nothing good.

Roughly 30% of daily calories is coming from vegetable oil.

On a personal note, I didn't know she had a mysterious neurological issue that made it difficult for her to walk. Her husband convinced her to cut down on sugar, but this also made her aware of fatty acids. And how they work.

AND -- haven't gotten there yet -- there's a little known vegetable oil corporation clash with organized medicine that started shortly after WWII.

I'm loving it.

I avoid the "Hateful 8" as much as I can.

Of course, eliminating them is practically impossible.

Bacon fat, butter, olive oil, and coconut oil are our choices.

I like roasted nuts, it's peanut oil, or they stay on the shelf.

Nothing with Canola (rapeseed), Corn, Cottonseed, Soy, Sunflower, Safflower, Grapeseed, or Ricebran if I can avoid it.

They are very profitable for the frankenfood corporations, but aren't necessarily all that good for you.

Of course, that's what I read, and there are other articles that argue. But I figure, the less industrialized, the more natural, the more our body has evolved to process them.

Dark Calories finally came into our library …well written and avoiding the "hateful eight" is something I have done for years after reading Deep Nutrition. I particularly appreciated her balanced review of the Keto Diet. Having ketones in your blood does not mean you are getting healthier. We need metabolic flexibility. Following a keto diet does enable you to burn dietary fat, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re burning your body fat … it may even make you burn protein.

Dr. Shananhan recommends a lower carb diet. A diet that is NOT low enough to qualify as keto and includes specific kinds of nutrient dense carbohydrates, [slow digesting carbs ] at least once a day. These carbohydrates may be the only way some people can escape the metabolic vicious cycle. Her plan…First spend two weeks removing all vegetable/seed oils and sugar, and any snacks. For anyone use to eating processed foods, this may be hard. Atkins and his followers haven’t focused on PUFAs, and control only the BG spikes, not the baseline needs from oxidative stress.

At the same time, I have Dr Ede’s new book, change your diet, change your mind, and it is a slog. Her keto approach seems dated with little discussion of oxidative stress and nutrients. Dr. Shanahan‘s work goes through the science on oils and keto diets has a very practical way to start eating a healthier diet.

I think it is important to remember that Dr Ede is focused on mental health, people with significant mental health challenges that disrupt their lives. She appears to rely on a combination of scientific analysis and direct clinical experience. As a person who struggled with severe depression in my life, I appreciate her focus on this issue. Very low carb really help me overcome years of depression.

Thanks for listing the 8.

I envounter people who think rapeseed oil is good, just as I once did. Until recently learning otherwise. Of course, I had just purchased several quarts on sale. Lol

Health more important, bottles have been put away for another use.

Using beef fat has become our primary choice in the kitchen. It's cheap. 70 cents a pound from the butcher currently. Nice to cook steaks in beef fat.

Impossible to avoid those seed oils altogether if you should ever go out to eat, etc. But I never have them in my house and therefore obviously never cook or prepare food with them. Olive oil and avocado oil are the two I keep around the house. It’s been probably at least 10 years or more since I gave them up. And I still have lumpy bumpy unsightly cellulite all over my hips and thighs. I hate the idea of wearing shorts. 😢

I keep the seed oils out of the house too. But of course, you can't completely avoid them.

But the body has the ability to take care of itself, as long as you don't overwhelm it.

And I don't think just because a person calls himself/herself a doctor and writes a book, means that book is the bible. It could be a covert advertisement, or written in good faith. It could work for one and not the other or nobody at all.

Gather from many sources, and see what works for you.

I tried a few different diets, some of which have stellar reputations, but didn't work for me. When I found the Ketogenic diet, it did. Decades later, it's still working. Plus, I'm healthier than probably 90% of the other folks my age.

Will it work for everyone? I doubt it. We are all different.

This is the context in which this excellent book must be read. To make it into something else and rate it against others’ health agendas makes no sense. Bravo to Drs. Ede and Palmer for discovering and identifying the myriad benefits of a ketogenic approach in stabilizing mental health.

I put this podcast in my journal, but adding it here.
If you are using a keto diet to control diabetes, or avoiding all Oxalates, she has her own take that avoiding the "hateful eight" seed oils should be the first step. In the sense that seed oils are a cause of Energy Toxicity, I would agree, but it is not the only way we can get fat.

Podcast is on Peak Human with Dr Cate Shanahan,

https://www.peak-human.com/post/a-r...r-cate-shanahan
A Root Cause For All Disease?

Dr Cate's focus on seed oils was probably the first anti-inflammatory angle I tried. My rosacea essentially went away in the first few months of being vigilant. I got a dramatic signal to keep going.

My favorite dark calorie is 86% chocolate. :D

I'll go ya one better:

Unsweetened baking chocolate.

Another name for it is chocolate liquor, a paste produced from ground cocoa nibs, which is solid at room temperature.

I buy bags of it from a local chocolate company - they used to manufacture the "wafers" (flat discs) of pure baking chocolate at their local factory, but they were bought out by another company, which moved manufacturing operations to someplace in New England (Vermont maybe? Maine? I've forgotten) - still offer the same baking chocolate at their local company store though (as well as many different sugary confections that the company has sold for nearly 100 years)

I take my chocolate liqueur straight! (or occasionally melt it, mix with a bit of stevia and vanilla extract, and a little cream to smooth everything together)




(returning you to your regularly scheduled Dark Calories book discussion)

Yes, took me years to reach a whole foods diet. A blend of Atkins, and Dr Li.

Dumped seed oils 4 years ago. My cellulite is effectively gone.

While I struggle to keep low carb, it's rarely but sometimes is bread and honey, but more likely whole fruit.

Dr Davis helped me see the danger of wheat. After reading DANDR I quit baking, quit baking bread. But still struggle at times with pasta. And bread n butter. Dr Davis extended the danger of wheat to gi damage.

Some veggies several times a week, usually low carb types;, trying to get asparagus, lettuces, red bell peppers green beans. Choices are more nutrient packed than just low carb fillers. Beets offer boron which is otherwise hard to get enough of.

Having a garden helps with picking up probiotics, for now.

Learned to make ACV with the mother. Need to learn to ferment other veggies.

A sweet now and then. But mostly beef, and fish once a week. I'm not a fish eater. I thought I was. Must have been all that breading. Plain fish is a challenge. The more beef I eat, the less fish looks tasty. I don't know why. So to solve this Vrazilian stew is a weekly dish to force consumption of fish, oysters, shellfish.

I still don't get enough of some minerals.....

Arielle, there is no recommended daily allowance for Boron, it is in soil, water, fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. so ubiquitous, not often a worry. Prunes and walnuts are good sources. Cronometer tracks up to 80 nutrients for which there are daily values, and also nutrient ratios that should be in balance. More than boron; look to magnesium:calcium, zinc: copper, potassium:sodium ratios, etc. and the nutrients that are commonly low in a LC diet. No supplements needed. But if you don’t want to track…

Top foods that are mineral dense: Minerals in Food: Stronger Bones & Better Mood https://optimisingnutrition.com/min...e-more-minerals
It is easy to get enough minerals by eating only Whole Foods and removing energy dense foods with few nutrients (LC cheesecake, rebel ice cream, etc.).

Consider Dr Andrew Huberman's Simple diet:
https://forum.lowcarber.org/showpos...3&postcount=450.

I try to avoid as much seed oil as I can.

It's tough finding nuts roasted in peanut oil, instead of soy, cottonseed, sunflower or whatever, but it's possible. And I eat a lot of nuts.

We're careful when we buy fish oil to make sure it isn't cut with soybean oil.

Olive oil and coconut oil are the only ones we keep in the house.

Of course, it's almost impossible to avoid. But in small quantities, it's probably fine.

Same with wheat. Years before atkins/keto, I thought I had a dairy intolerance. When I cut out the wheat, the dairy intolerance disappeared. But every once in a great while, if I have something with wheat in it, it doesn't bother me.

All things in moderation (add to that, some things in minutia)

Have you ever tried avocado oil? That comes from the fruit of the avocado, not the seed.

Avocado oil has the advantage of a very high smoke point, which makes it good for searing meat when frying in a pan.

I think we tried it once, but don't really remember.

I like to fry things in butter, lard, or bacon fat. It seems people were thinner before Crisco.

But that works for us. We all are different.

For those interested, Dr Shanahan is one of the speakers later this month at the September IHCAN Virtual Conference.

I get the Primal Kitchen salad dressings, because they are made with avocado oil. Pricey, but a bottle is full of flavor and lasts me a long time.

If I eat a salad, it's extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar.

That's what I was brought up with, and anything else just tastes wrong to me. But that's just me.

They were wrong about "dark leafy greens" and calcium, for instance. Lots of it in there, but not bioavailable.

I make a salad with sardines in olive oil, with dill pickles providing the vinegar :) Sprinkle some parmesan over it and it's a nice seafood salad.

But it's the fish bones that have my calcium.

Same for iron. Spinach has a lot of iron, but your body does not absorb it. That's where heme iron comes into play.

Heme iron comes from meat, fish, and fowl (of course, fish and fowl are also meat).

Plants are extremely hard to digest. That's why cows have multiple stomachs, they ferment their food and chew it again and again. Horses have extraordinarily long intestines to keep it in the digestive juices longer, and other animals eat their stools and find nutrition in them. Rabbits, deer, and others eat their own stools to pass them through the digestive system again.

Back on topic, I don't think we humans evolved to eat and digest vegetable oils. Of course, that doesn't in itself mean they are bad for us, but other studies have show just how inflammatory they are.

But the food industry is more concerned about their profits than they are about your health. And since the agencies that are supposed to regulate the food industry are filled with food industry shills, that isn't going to help. So we have to watch out for ourselves.