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Five healthy must-have fats to stock in your kitchen that with regular use facilitate the path to optimal vitality and wellness as exemplified by traditional cultures.
When folks ask me for advice on how to change their diet for the better, I tell them that the quickest way to improve their health and just feel amazingly better in general (like, feel better tomorrow – that’s how fast this works) is to get the right healthy fats into their diet and the wrong (factory) fats out.
Eating organic fruits/vegetables and grinding their own flour/making their own bread are usually the two changes that people want to do first, but the truth is, while important, these two things will have the least impact on your health in the immediate term.
I am very much a results-oriented kind of gal, so I try to tell folks what will give them the most bang for the buck right away.
Making significant changes to your diet with minimal impact on how you feel every day is very discouraging. That is why I tell people to get the fats right from the get-go.
The sad truth is that most folks have the fats totally wrong, even if they claim to eat healthily. Another eye-opening truth is that you have absolutely no chance at health if you don’t have the fats right! This is the critical first step toward your best health.
Get the healthy fats right and even if you continue to eat conventional produce and meats (I don’t necessarily advocate this – I am just trying to make a point), your health will blow away anyone who eats everything organic and has the fats wrong!
I know this from personal experience. Getting the fats right was the single change that I made almost ten years ago that finally made me feel terrific after years of eating organic fruits/veggies and meats and still feeling pretty lousy much of the time.
Surprised? Well, consider this. The cell wall of every single cell in the human body is made up of fat. Our very brain is made up of approximately 60% fat.
Don’t those two factoids right there indicate in flashing neon lights the incredible importance of getting the right fats into our diet and how devastating eating the wrong ones can be? I hope anyone reading this blog isn’t still under the incredibly dangerous notion that eating a low-fat diet is a healthy thing to do.
If you are new to the idea that fats can be healthy, check out my article on the scam of skim milk.
Also note that every single healthy ancestral culture on the planet revered fats as the secret for keeping them healthy, fertile and resistant to infectious and chronic diseases. This startling anthropological discovery that conventional health authorities misguidedly gloss over was discovered by Dr. Weston A. Price early in the last century. (1)
With that, I will now reveal the Five Healthy Fats that you MUST have in your kitchen – assuming vibrant health is your goal, of course.
Butter
Ah, what can I say about grass-fed butter? It is one of the most perfect foods on this planet.
Like Julia Child, I have discovered over the years that you simply can’t eat too much butter. And, if you think you’re eating too much, you can always substitute cream, as Ms. Child is rumored to have said!
I like to joke with people that the more butter I eat, the slimmer I get! Butter was my secret weapon for staying trim even after having my third child in my forties.
If you are a butter lover too, you know from experience that there’s quite a bit of truth to that statement!
Deep yellow/orange butter from cows eating rapidly growing spring grass was considered a sacred food by the Traditional Swiss culture, a culture with young men so perfect and pleasing in physique, strength, and character that the Vatican favored these young men over all others to serve as the Papal Guard at the Vatican.
Want your children to have strong, robust physiques and healthy bone structure? Eat lots of butter when you are pregnant and load up their food with it while they are in their growing years. Ignore the low-fat nonsense and see and feel the results for yourself. Eating lots of butter stabilizes the blood sugar and significantly reduces or even eliminates sugar cravings.
Overconsumption of all things sweet and starchy and factory fats are the real villains for those with ill health, NOT whole, healthy fats like butter (2).
The cell wall of every cell in the human body is supposed to be composed of saturated fat, the wonderful fat that is so abundant in butter. Replace the real thing with margarine and the body will incorporate these inferior fats into the cell walls instead.
With the wrong type of fat making up the cell wall, intercellular communication breaks down and the cell itself is weakened.
Skin cells whose cell walls are composed of the fats from polyunsaturated vegetable oils (the main fat in the Western diet) instead of the much stronger saturated fats are more prone to damage from the sun and unsightly brown spots (or melasma if pregnant).
If, for no other reason than vanity, switch to butter and throw out those nasty vegetable oils.
Allergic to dairy and wondering what are good substitutes for butter? The linked article will help you navigate the maze of products on the market for a healthy alternative.
Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is loaded with medium-chain saturated fats which are utilized by the body for immediate energy! Want to feel better and have more energy and maybe even lose weight?
Incorporate this wonderful, healthy fat into your diet in generous amounts. Coconut oil is a highly stable oil, so much so, that you can keep it unrefrigerated in your pantry for years and it will not go rancid (I have a large bucket in my garage…it stays perfect through the long, hot, humid Florida summers!). It remains stable even at very high heat, so it is the ideal cooking oil.
I use coconut oil anytime a recipe calls for cooking oil or shortening. Coconut oil used in your baked goods will result in cookies, cakes, and pastries so moist – you and your family will be delighted.
Tip: I recommend expeller-pressed coconut oil if you don’t care for the mild coconut flavor of virgin coconut oil.
Physiologically, coconut oil stimulates the thyroid gland, so it is a fantastic addition to the diet for those that tend toward hypothyroidism. By some estimates, about 80% of Westerners over the age of 25 falls under this category.
Lauric acid, a very important medium-chain saturated fatty acid, is found in abundance in coconut oil (but not MCT oil also called “liquid” coconut oil). Lauric acid is highly antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal.
And guess what? The human mammary gland produces lauric acid and it is contained in breastmilk! Anyone with candida issues of any kind should be regularly consuming coconut oil in their diet. Rubbing coconut oil into the scalp and then shampooing out is a wonderful home remedy for dandruff, a fungal infection of the skin.
If you have trouble stomaching the oil straight up, you can also take it as coconut oil capsules. If you have an allergy to coconut, try palm oil, red palm oil, or palm kernel oil, two other healthy tropical oils.
One word of warning, some folks experience skin or digestive issues from coconut oil. This article explains when to avoid coconut oil due to allergies or sensitivities.
Please see my resources page for where to buy quality coconut oil products.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Without a doubt, extra virgin olive oil is the best of the healthy fats to use for salad dressings. Why don’t all salad dressings at the store contain this wonderful Mediterranean oil?
What’s up with Annie’s brand of organic salad dressing at the health food store using canola or soybean oil? Update: now there is sunflower oil in there too. Has this company lost its mind? No, it is just more beholden to stockholders than customers. Canola, sunflower and soybean oil are all cheap oils that increase the profit margin.
Bottom line: Annie’s is too cheap to just use extra virgin olive oil. In case you haven’t noticed, extra virgin olive oil is rather expensive in comparison. You trade a lower price on industrialized oils with your health, so make sure you buy only extra virgin olive oil and not cheap, highly processed vegetable oil or products that contain them.
If, by chance, you are one of the folks who have trouble with olive oil and tend to put on weight quickly when you consume it, then try another traditional oil such as sesame or peanut oil with a tsp or two of added flax oil for your salad dressings instead.
Please see my shopping list for where to source vetted, 100% pure, unblended extra virgin olive oil.
Animal Fat
Animal fats such as schmaltz, goose, duck, tallow, and lard have nourished Traditional Cultures for centuries. And don’t forget about the rich yolks from pastured chicken, duck, and goose eggs!
Most people don’t even realize that McDonald’s used beef tallow to fry it’s french fries until the sea change in the restaurant industry some 30 years ago in favor of partially hydrogenated fats caused the unfortunate switch to these very unhealthy Factory Fats!
When I make homemade chicken, beef, or duck stock, I freeze in one-quart containers and then easily peel off the fat that freezes on top to use for cooking. Animal fat imparts valuable nutrition and wonderful flavor to roast vegetables.
The reason many kids won’t eat veggies is that they are so tasteless! Roasting organic vegetables in a bit of chicken fat makes them absolutely delicious. My kids frequently ask why the veggies in restaurants are so tasteless and why the ones cooked at home are so yummy. Now you know the secret that Traditional Cultures always practiced!
Beef tallow can’t be beaten for making healthy homemade french fries! Whoever thought that healthy eating could taste so fantastic! Liberal use of traditional animal fats in the kitchen makes this possible.
For more on healthy fats from animals, refer to the articles on how to render tallow and how to render lard.
High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil
Rounding out the Five Fats you must have in your kitchen is Granny’s favorite, cod liver oil. Cod liver oil contains omega 3, essential fatty acids that most Westerners are severely deficient in. Deficiency in these delicate omega 3 fats invites inflammation in the body which leads to innumerable conditions and illnesses. This vetted brand is high quality and no heat processed.
Unlike plain fish oil or krill oil, cod liver oil also contains vitamins A and D in their natural state.
Vitamins A and D, when taken together in whole food like cod liver oil, work synergistically to improve the function of every system in the human body!
The importance of Vitamin D in cod liver oil cannot be underestimated with regard to its positive effects on health. Vitamin D deficiency is even said to be the reason many people get the flu.
Well, there you have it. The Five Fats that when incorporated into your diet will most certainly improve your health and vitality. Once you throw out the Factory Fats you are currently using such as butter substitutes and vegetable oils and replace them with the Five Healthy Fats described in this blog, you will very likely begin to feel improved energy right away.
The most striking change that occurred immediately for me when I got my fats right was a rapid reduction in sugar cravings!
Getting the fats right is the only way I have ever found for people to reduce and eventually eliminate their sugar addiction. Any other approach is temporary at best and relies solely on will power rather than the body being nourished and not needing the sugar (remember that the body converts sugar to saturated fat, so if your diet is low in saturated fat, you will be plagued with sugar cravings that cannot be controlled).
If this is your experience as well, I would love to hear about it as well as any other improvements you’ve noticed in your health once the fats get fixed.
References
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
Study Fails to Link Saturated Fat and Heart Disease
Could you give any advice for someone who gets gallbladder pain & referred pain after trying to eat more animal fats? I’ve tried on & off for some years, but I always give up. I try to only eat grass reared meets & eggs. Egg yolks cause horrible pain – I can only cope with one or two eggs a week, but don’t even really like them. Also I could never eat the fat around meat – I’d be sick. I’ve tried using lard to cook with, but it always makes me ill. I also react badly to iodine, kelp & anything where shellfish has snuck in the recipe – this is since being injected with it often as a small child as a contrast agent for many x-rays. Allopathy has harmed me much, but I do my best to heal. If carageenan (from seaweed) is used in a capsule I react to that too. My face & throat blows up red with itchy vesicles. I was treated with mass antibiotics as a child and they have affected my thryroid/endocrine system. I also can’t eat fish – I just utterly hate it, but also the iodine. Do you think the cod liver oil the WP foundation recommends would be something I could use more of – increasing steadily so my body gets used to it? I drink full fat jersey milk raw or vat pasturised if I can’t get the raw. I eat grass fed cow’s butter. I eat coconut oil & extra virgin olive oil (but probably not enough going by this blog). Thanks in advance.
You can try herbal bitters which help stimulate the liver to secrete bile to digest the fats. This may help.
Thanks! Its interesting to me that bile is bitter & in order to stimulate it we need bitter foods in our diet. I had forgotten this! I qualified recently as a homeopath & homeopathy has the Principle that “like cures like”. I find examples of this in nature & traditional cultures often.
This is probably a bit late, but I wan’t to recommend Lecithin for your gallbladder problems. Some lecithin (like a teaspoon) every time you eat fat, will help with the pain by easing the digestion of fat. And remember that fat does not cause gallbladder stones, lack of fat does. =)
Excellent article! I will note for those who want to substitute palm oil for coconut oil: vast areas of Indonesia/Malaysia are being deforested for the sole purpose of planting palm trees for palm oil. The subsequent extinction of the orangutan (as well as other species) is in sight.
My husband is a big fan of organic popcorn, made the old-fashioned way (stovetop). I pop it in a mixture of rendered lard (if I have it) and just a tad of butter (saving melting butter and pouring it on later – anything to save a dish or pan!) and we add a bit of gray sea salt. If I don’t have home rendered lard on hand, I use a combo of avocado oil and butter. It is to die for! Ya gotta try it. It’s a good combo, as well, for homemade fries.
I have a question. Does good beef tallow have to come from a specific part of the beast, or can I call my butcher and just say I’d like some tallow for cooking? It seems as though everyone needs specific instructions these days. Even when I call him for dog bones, I have to specify if I want marrow or meaty, etc., and I basically have to tell him what part of the animal I want to take the bones from, as though he could do it wrong! Our world of food is not as simple as it used to be. I suspect he is recording our conversations so as to be sure and do what I ask. Maybe there are too many lawsuits going on these days or something. Scary.
Hi D, beef tallow is the special fat around the kidneys. Most butchers would throw it out, so you should be able to ask for it to get some. Just be sure to find a local butcher who knows where the beef is coming from .. you don’t want tallow from a CAFO animal.
This is such a helpful article. I will be sharing this with many friends. I plan to use the coconut oil to cook my root vegetable stir-fry tonight.
Hi, Sarah–I’m thrilled to have just found your website! Thank you… it’s right up my alley 🙂 Reading down your list of top 5 recommended fats, I was surprised not to see HEMP OIL listed and am wondering what your thoughts are on it and how you think it compares to the five you listed. Thanks so much!
Hi J, hemp oil is not a traditional oil and as such didn’t make the cut for a fat that one must have in the kitchen. In fact, in traditional cultures, hemp was only used in times of starvation. Here is a link for you to check out the history of hemp as food:
Hemp was not traditionally used as a food except during periods of starvation as seen in the book, The Year 1000: What Life was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium — An Englishman’s World, by Robert Lacey. In a chapter called “July: The Hungry Gap,” he writes about the period of near starvation that would occur every summer for poor people before the August harvest was ready. You’ve probably heard of the LSD-like mold that grew on rye. But he also writes, “This hallucinogenic lift was accentuated by the herbs and grains with which the dwindling stocks of conventional flour were amplified as the summer wore on. Poppies, hemp and darnel were scavenged, dried and ground up to produce a medieval hash brownie known as ‘crazy bread.’ So even as the poor endured hunger, it is possible that their diet provided them with some exotic and artificial paradises. ‘It was as if a spell had been placed on entire communities,’ according to one modern historian.” (p.102)
http://www.westonaprice.org/faq/793-faq-miscellaneous-food-questions.html
Kristie, you need 1 tsp per day of fermented cod liver oil (there is only one brand that I recommend: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/resources/#supplements)
And since you can’t eat butter, you must get your whole, unprocessed saturated fats from meats besides coconut oil. Make sure when you get a good grassfed steak that you eat all the fat with it too. And, when you make homemade broth, reserve the fat that comes to the top for roasting veggies. Well done! 🙂
It’s an old way of eating that is “new” again, isn’t it? We are rediscovering that the traditional ways of eating really were the best and factories can’t improve on nature.
Sarah, this is so good to be learning all this. Please help me get it, perhaps because I have been brain washed. Can I eat animal fat and not have to worry about heart disease and high cholesterol which runs in my family? Is this truly okay? And the hamburger too?
A second question, cod liver oil, have heard warnings about fish oils going rancid and to not take them. Any validity to this?
Thank you.
Wilbur
I thought of one more question. I am eating mostly coconut oil (due to not being able to have butter). Also some high quality olive oil, and a tsp. or two of cod liver oil. Are my fats balanced? I will be passing along your wonderful site to my friends who are interested in this new way of eating!
Hi Sarah! I have been learning about nourishing traditions for a few months now, due to working on my health. I had IGG food testing done and came out with only one allergy-milk. I scored a five (the highest score!). So, my dr. told me no dairy at all (not even goat’s milk yet). It looks like I do not have candida according to the tests. My amino acids were also all wrong-with a very high need for arginine. So now we are trying to figure out if it is mercury, lyme’s disease or who knows?! I was wondering if my milk allergy would ever heal enough to try ghee or whey. I soaked 2 cups oatmeal in 2 cups water and almost 4 tbsp. apple cider vinegar and my girls won’t eat it! Too strong! Would it be safe to use only 1 tbsp or less of the vinegar?