Dear Subscriber,
I received a great question from a subscriber in Georgia:
“Question...I thought we were supposed to avoid seed oils and vegetable oils in our diet. We are told to only consume olive oil or coconut oil. So, I guess PEOs are different, somehow? I'm just confused over this point.
Thanks again,
Kay from Georgia”.
Kay, there are differences between oils. Right now, vegetable oils are taking a beating because of their high omega 6 content. The real issue is not the absolute amount of omega 3 vs 6. The issue is that oils are extracted from plants (or fish) in the presence of oxygen, at temperatures far above what the salmon experience (about 4º C), and used for cooking, and added to processed foods, where they become rancid – very dangerous. Heat any unsaturated fat and it degrades, oxidizes and becomes rancid. In the case of marine oils, you don’t even need to heat the oils. Just smell a fish left out overnight.
First rule – don’t cook food in any unsaturated oil, including olive oil. It is monounsaturated, so perhaps better than polyunsaturated, but olive oil is still vulnerable to oxidation.
Next rule. If you do want to use oil or fat in cooking your food, choose a saturated fat. These are more stable in the presence of heat and oxygen. Suitable choices include butter, ghee (clarified butter), coconut oil, and lard. Never use too high a temperature in cooking with any oil, including saturated. Butter browns with high temperature.
Next, getting omega 3 oils from vegetable sources: Generally, the higher latitude the source of the plant from which the oil is extracted, the higher the omega 3 content will be relative to omega 6. Hence, you’ll find an abundance of omega 3 with walnut, flax, and hemp oils. Again, please DO NOT cook with these oils.
And, contrary to what you may have heard, we need significantly more omega 6 then omega 3. But in agreement with what you have heard, we ARE getting lots more omega 6. But the the omega 6 we are getting is too often in processed foods and commercial toxic oils, like corn, safflower, sunflower, oils, etc. The extraction process leads to adulteration and rancidity. If you do choose to consume these oils, make sure they are organic and cold extracted.
Grass is loaded with omega 3. Hence, beef raised on grass will have a far better content of EFAs than cattle fed grains which are loaded with omega 6.
I think olive oil is God’s gift to mankind. Jesus preached on the Mt of Olives! It is loaded with health giving polyphenols. But again, it is not made to be heated. I consume extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) most every day. My sources of omega 3 and 6 oils are generally in whole foods, like almonds, walnuts, hemp seeds, etc. If I want supplemental omega oils, my personal choice is YES EFA, which provides true parent essential oils, and extracted from plant sources under very protective conditions to prevent auto-oxdation (rancidity). You can order these oils at Your Essential Supplements: https://www.yes-supplements.com/products/yes-ultimate-efas.html.
You can get a significant discount with the coupon code: SUSAVE10.
These oils were put together by my EFA mentor Brian Peskin. And yes, even with my relatively pristine diet, I do take YES EFA supplemental oils from time to time. You absolutely need parent essential oils to permit the movement of oxygen in your body and its entry into your cells. You can find lots more information about these matters in the book I co-authored called “The PEO Solution”.
We require “essential fatty acids” for life, just as we do vitamins. Our body cannot make omega 3 and 6 unsaturated fatty acids. For this reason, they are termed “essential”, and the plant 18 carbon chain versions are considered the real “essential” oils. Marine oils are not essential. They are elongated versions and more unsaturated, which our bodies actually make. The problem for the pundits and sellers of marine oils is that our conversion of the plant 18 carbon chain version to the longer 20 and 22 HIGHLY unsaturated versions is not as fast as the pundits believe it should be, so they figure God made a mistake.
Well, I don’t believe that God made such a mistake, so I am in respectful professional disagreement with that line of thought. An article published a few years ago found that supplementing with these longer and far more unsaturated fatty acids induced mitochondria to take in these highly vulnerable versions into their membranes and make the energy furnaces far more vulnerable to oxidative aging, when the plant 18 carbon version was replaced by the longer version. If we had fast conversion, our mitochondria might age must faster, and we now know that our overall aging process is directly tied to the aging of our energy furnaces. For these reasons, I don’t generally recommend marine oils. I’d rather your body, in its own wisdom, control the level of the very vulnerable long versions than force feeding your body with pharmacologic amounts of these oils. This is a generalization, of course. There are likely specific instances where pharmacologic doses of marine oils could be useful.
Thank you for your question, Kay. Please let me know if this provided the answers to your concerns.
To Your Excellent Health,
Robert Jay Rowen, MD
Source:
“Some studies suggest that an increase in n–3 PUFAs within mitochondrial membranes will modulate proton conductance and enhance proton uncoupling, leading to limited weight gain or increased weight loss (194, 195). However, evidence that n–3 PUFAs affect weight loss is lacking and at times contradictory (196, 197). Paradoxically, some studies showed that pathological remodeling of cardiolipin will increase oxidative damage that contributes to mitochondrial dysfunction in obesity and type 2 diabetes. For instance, Li et al. (35) showed that DHA concentrations in C2C12 cells were elevated upon upregulation of ALCAT1 and increased oxidative stress. ALCAT1 is relevant because a murine ALCAT1 knockout model was shown to protect against diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance (35). In addition, shotgun lipidomic studies showed a significant decrease in cardiolipin abundance and a profound remodeling of the remaining cardiolipin species to include DHA acyl chains in rat diabetic myocardium (198, 199). These studies suggest that an increase in n–3 PUFA acyl chains within mitochondrial membranes could be detrimental for mitochondrial function.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5952932/
good point. I think beef tallow is fine. That is why I mentioned lard.
Top problem with industrial oils (usually a way to dump industrial waste for a profit, as with MTBE) is the linoleic acid (LA) content. Humans need a tiny bit of LA, but just as too much zinc can impeded copper metabolism and too much of Mg or Ca, can inhibit the other, LA is essential to a specific type of cardiolipin, while being detrimental to others. The makeup of cardiolipin is different in different functional areas, with LA being detrimental in most, while essential in few, but the massive increase in LA in the western diet means LA is in a lot of places where it doesn't belong and where it down regulates proper energy conversion.
The principle ingredient in health is energy. Simply stated, energy is the enemy of entropy, and it is our gradual inability to generate energy that underlies aging as well as chronic health challenges. With insufficient energy, we can't even fight off a cold, let alone cancer. LA damages most mitochondria.
LA, as you've stated, also oxidizes at lower temps than the "better" fats, but even as an ingredient when not overheated, it is rare in any natural diet. We need ~2-4g and the average American diet contains 40-60, and the average teenager is probably twice that, meaning that what we needed more of is being pushed aside by something of which we need very little.