Do you know how many PUFAs you consume in your diet?
Do you know what PUFAs are?
PUFA stands for polyunsaturated fatty acids and are largely found in seeds and nuts, as well as fish products. They are highly unstable forms of fatty acids and drive these symptoms:
Inflammation
Insulin resistance
Digestive issues
Accelerated aging
Infertility
Slow Metabolism
Autism
They are highly reactive in our hot, oxygen rich bodies that get exposed to sunlight regularly. Warm body and cold body species require and digest foods differently.
Here are some nuts and seeds high in PUFAs
Sunflower seeds
Chia seeds
Pumpkin seeds
Flax seeds
Sesame Seeds
Almonds
Pistachios
And some high-PUFA containing fats/oils
Canola Oil
Rapeseed Oil
Cottonseed Oil
Shortening
Margarine
Soybean Oil
Corn Oil
Sunflower Oil
Safflower Oil
Wheat Germ Oil
Flaxseed Oil
Grapeseed Oil
Peanut Oil
Sesame Oil
Almond Oil
Fish also contain PUFAs!
All oily fish like:
Salmon, Anchovies etc
Fish Oil Supplements
Krill Oil Supplements
Most likely you eat a lot of these because we have been told that nuts and seeds are loaded with healthy nutrients, protein and fats.
Let's debunk these statements, because I beg to differ:
In my previous post “Why Soak Grains” you can read that seeds, nuts and grain are not easy to digest and very often we are not able to extract the nutrients from food because we don’t have a ruminant digestive system. So read up on how to improve the digestibility of seeds and nuts right here. But soaking will not change the fat content.
Why are PUFAs being promoted?
I know you most likely have heard that seed oils are heart healthy, prevent diabetes and are good for your skin. But is that really true or is it yet another marketing scheme by big corporations to make a ton of cash?
Fish Oil is big business and so is disease! It is easy to manipulate science to fit a specific narrative when the bottom line is MONEY.
Fish Oil, flax oil, and cottonseed oil (aka CANOLA) used to be a waste product and used in oil based paints. But when those were replaced with synthetic oils another use had to be created for the SEED OIL industry. This is also when the term ‘essential fatty acid' was born!
When you eat a high-PUFA diet those fats need to be dealt with to safely transport them out of your body. When you don’t have the resources, PUFAs lodge into your fat cells and cause inflammation because your body can't get rid of them and/or doesn’t have a good enough supply of saturated fats. They cause digestive issues because your body is trying hard to make use of a large amount of PUFAs even though it is not made to handle them. In addition, your cells that store PUFAs become defective and can't take care of their usual affairs. Like absorbing minerals, enzymes, and hormones. You start having receptor cell issues, which is an uncommon condition to be diagnosed with, leading many practitioners astray.
Nuts and seeds naturally contain a high amount of PUFA protective vitamin E but that will be exhausted during long storage periods which leads to rancidity. Heating and exposure to UV light also destroys the valuable Vitamin E antioxidant.
Now, we can't get rid of all PUFA containing foods because all fat sources are a mixture of Polyunsaturated Fats, Monounsaturated Fats, and Saturated Fats.
The difference between all foods is the RATIO!
But we can make better choices, and make things easy on our body and digestive system.
I don’t recommend ever creating ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food dichotomies in our minds, but some foods that are promoted as ‘health foods’ are often bothering our system.
Ironically, we have often ditched the very foods we need to be eating in exchange for foods full of poor quality fats.
Examples are
Peanuts
Nut Butters
Nut Flours
Nut “Milks”
Seeds
Seed Butters
Other Legumes
Nuts
Ditching excessive PUFAs in my diet for animal fats, aka saturated fat, changed my life and health.
Yes you heard me, saturated fats are good for us!
Our hormones are made from saturated fats and our cells stabilize themselves with fat. The right fats matter.
What about the Omega3s that are abundant in nuts and seeds? Don’t we need those?
Unfortunately, the benefits of omegas are highly over-exaggerated. They are incredibly unstable when exposed to heat (remember your body is 98 degrees, well it should be!) and most oils are rancid by the time they reach the supplement bottle!
Omega 6s can promote inflammation when out of balance with Omega 3s, but this does not mean to eat more Omega 3s.
The answer is BETTER FATS in general!
Animal fats are stable and high quality. And when we focus on eating these foods we naturally balance our Omega 3, 6 and 9 ratio!
A balanced ratio of stable fats and highly-unstable fats is the most important goal.
Moderate sources of PUFA containing foods:
Fats/Oils
Lard (Pork Fats)
Duck Fat
Turkey Fat
Chicken Fat
Emu Oil
Nuts/Seeds
Hazelnuts
Cashews
Fish
Moderately Fatty Fish (sardines, tuna…)
Cod Liver Oil
We have to consider the food the animals are being fed as well. The more PUFA rich an animal's diet is, the more PUFAs are in the fat tissue! An animal that has been fed with corn and soy will have a different fat profile than an animal fed a higher quality diet.
Ditching bad fats and being mindful of our fat sources is FOUNDATIONAL to regaining our health.
Unfortunately, a lot of low carb, paleo, and gluten-free products still use these cheap, poor-quality oils.
Vegetable oils are in everything, organic and non-organic foods alike
Mayo
Frozen Foods
Chips
Crackers
Cookies
Baked Goods
Ice Cream
Protein Bars
Restaurant and Fast Food
Hummus
Salad Dressings
Packaged Foods
Since being PUFA-free is impossible, we can focus on the ratio to not overburden our body.
These nutrient-dense foods still contain some unsaturated fats but the amount of stable fats greatly outweigh or balance the unstable fats.
Egg yolks
Milk
Beef
Cheese
We also need to consider the context, because there are nutrient-dense foods that have PUFAs in them. Some of these foods have a very high vitamin and mineral profile and you don’t want to miss out on them necessarily.
Sardines
Fish Eggs
Oysters (those with a low heavy metal profile)
Raw soaked nuts
Stone ground nut butter
Other low-PUFA food sources are
Beef Tallow
Lamb Tallow
Bison Tallow
Butter and Ghee (pasture raised and soy/corn free)
Coconut Oil
Palm Oil
Olive Oil
Avocado Oil (the real deal only, many fake avocado oils are being sold)
Cacao Butter
Macadamia Nuts (if not rancid)
Chestnuts
Another important fact is the vitamin content in Fats vs Oil.
Butter, Cream, Ghee, Egg Yolks, Cheese, Meat, Dairy, Organs all contain fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, K in the correct forms! 'Fat soluble' means your body can only absorb these vitamins connected to a fat molecule.
Oils on the other hand contain either no fat soluble vitamins or very little.
Oils contain mostly only vitamin E, but that will be used up to protect your body from polyunsaturated fats. Palm oil and coconut oil contain Vitamin E.
What about MUFAs?
Monounsaturated fatty acids tend to be much more stable than polyunsaturated fats.
Human breast milk, dairy, meat and some fish all contain different amounts of MUFAs.
Plant MUFA oils like olives, avocados and raw nuts can be delicious, and offer nutritional value to a diet but should still be balanced with true fats.
What if you have been eating PUFAs for a long time?
This may mean that a lot of your fat cells are saturated with PUFAs. You may want to start switching the composition of your cells with regular saturated fats in your diet. It is important to give this time as it can take up to 4 years to detox PUFAs. You can also take extra antioxidants and minerals as supplements to lower the effects of oxidation as much as possible.
References
https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/fishoil.shtml