This is the second part of an article about dietary fats. The first part was Understanding Dietary Fats Part 1 (of 2).
III. The Balance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids
According to the cancer model created by Johanna Budwig, cancer is mainly a result of wrong fats. Especially, cancer can be ultimately cured by replacing the wrong fats of the cell membranes with the right fat. That is, Omega-3, and the cure consists in a strict diet combined with intake of a mix of quark and linseed oil. This results in a special compound, binding the fatty acid of the linseed oil with sulphurated amino acids of the quark, which makes the fatty acids water soluble so they can penetrate tissues all the way into the cells.
Linseed oil is the only known vegetable source2 (so it can be consumed raw) of Omega-3 fatty acids in a high concentration. All other oils contain too much Omega-6 relative to Omega-3. We need both, but in the right balance. As an example, while Omega-3 combats inflammation, Omega-6 stimulates it. So better a little too much Omega-3 than a little too much Omega-6.
Linseed oil, or flax oil, is very volatile, however. It gets rancid so easily that it can hardly be handled. It may never under any circumstances be heated, and it should at all times be protected from light and oxygen.
All vegetable oils except linseed/flax seed oil (carefully handled) or small amounts of extra virgin olive oil are totally unsuitable as food because of their far too high level of Omega-6 fatty acids relative to Omega-3 fatty acids. Some of them can be used anyway, but only unheated and in small amounts, and provided that the lack of Omega-3 fatty acids is somehow compensated.
(Chia is another possible vegetable source of Omega-3 fatty acids. Oil from chia is not to my knowledge commercially available though, but that might be a matter of time. Chia is a high-quality foodstuff that will grow in importance in the future.)
IV. Cooking & Baking
Which kind of fat is suitable for cooking? I just said that linseed/flax seed oil may never be heated. You cannot use it for cooking or baking. As a matter of fact, all vegetable oils are unsuitable for heating because they oxidise too easily. The only exception is olive oil, which can be heated and used at least now and then. Olive oil has many good properties, but unfortunately it comes with the same problem as other oils, too much Omega-6, too little Omega-3. For this reason, always using olive oil is harmful.
Animal fat, as butter, is not easily destroyed by heating. But consisting mainly of saturated fatty acids, it is unsuitable as food anyway. Actually, the only fat that is suitable for heating and in other aspects are adequate for human digestion after heating is coconut fat. This seems to be as made for the human body. Raw it is even healing, and in some instances it has been used for cancer treatment.
So what can be recommended?
-Coconut fat for cooking and baking.
-Small amounts of extra virgin olive oil, preferably unheated, as on a salad. This oil might also serve as a reserve for cooking occasionally, when coconut fat is unavailable.
-Linseed oil cannot be used on a salad, because it will get rancid in less than 10 minutes, you will not get the time to eat it. Better chew some linseeds every day. Thus you get extra Omega-3.
-Also think of what your food contains of fat in itself. Fat fish, like salmon, mackerel, or herring contains a lot of Omega-3. Products from mammals contain a lot of saturated fat.
V. Saturated Fats - Unsaturated Fats - Blood Fats
All natural fats are a mix of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. If the saturated ones dominate, we usually talk about saturated fat.
Saturated means that it is saturated with hydrogen atoms, while a mono-unsaturated fatty acid lacks one hydrogen atom, and poly-unsaturated ones lack more than one hydrogen atom. Omega-3 fatty acids lack 3, and Omega-6 fatty acids lack 6 hydrogen atoms. Saturated fat is more chemically stable, while unsaturated fats are more unstable the more unsaturated they are. Being unstable here means that they get rancid easier, and thus they are unsuitable for heating. Olive oil has a high level of mono-unsaturated fatty acids, and is on the borderline here. It is better suited for heating than any other known oil.
Another consequence of the saturation is the level of solidity, or the melting point. Saturated fat is solid in body temperature. That is one very serious reason why it is unsuitable as food. It is not liquid in the blood. The more unsaturated it is, the lower the melting point. A mono-unsaturated oil as olive oil is fluid in body temperature, but might harden when put in the fridge. Other oils are fluid even if chilled.
It is very important that the blood fats are kept fluid, otherwise they stay in the cardiovascular system instead of being brought out into the cells to be used as energy! And if they pass through that stage, the quality of the fatty acids determines the quality of the cell membranes. A high fluidity is good.
Fortunately fats in the blood are mixed so solid butter can be compensated by highly liquid Omega-3 from fish, which has so much fluidity power that it can dissolve butter. In this respect it is the sum of the total intake that counts, not the individual parts.
Coconut oil is a bit too saturated to be ideal, but it is very easily compensated by even small amounts of more unsaturated fatty acids, and it remains the most harmless alternative for heating.
Hydrogenated vegetable oils are fluid fat that is chemically manipulated to become solid for the use in fast food, biscuits and much more. This is very dangerous. First because it is solid. Then because it is made solid by unnatural means and cannot always be dissolved in the body by other natural means. While you can dissolve butter with fish, you cannot fully dissolve hydrogenated fat with anything. It is an artificial product that ought to be completely avoided.
Your blood fats are determined partly by what fat you eat and how much, but also by other nutritional factors.
Several vitamins help dissolving fat (e.g. vitamin C and many of the B-vitamins), and the amino acid carnitine is responsible for the transportation of fat from the blood to the cells. If you have a deficiency of carnitine, too much fat will remain in the blood.
Q10 handles the transformation of fats in the cell into energy. If you have a deficiency of Q10, fat will stay there and block normal processes.
VI. Cholesterol
The role of cholesterol in the development of cardiovascular disease is a matter of some dispute. Traditionally it's claimed that high blood cholesterol increases the risk for this form of degenerative disease, but some scientists claim that its role has been exaggerated. Cholesterol becomes dangerous when it oxidises, not otherwise.
Matthias Raath claimed that atherosclerosis, heart attack, and stroke are a form of chronic scurvy, caused by long-term vitamin C deficiency.
According to this paradigm, ascorbic acid lowers the cholesterol by removing the need for it. Much of the cholesterol is formed to repair damaged vessels. If they are in good shape (as they will be if you take enough vitamin C), there is no need for it.
Add to this that ascorbic acid lowers the cholesterol by lowering the surface tension of the plasma too.
Otherwise, the mainstream opinion is that LDL [low-density lipoprotein] cholesterol is harmful while HDL [high-density lipoprotein] cholesterol is beneficial. And it has been shown in a number of studies that a high level of LDL cholesterol (especially oxidised) increases the risk for cardiovascular problems while HDL cholesterol even might repair already degenerated tissue.
You can affect this balance by your choice of food. A lot of saturated fat in the diet will increase your harmful LDL cholesterol. Unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats will increase your good HDL cholesterol and lower your LDL level. Walking also increases the formation of HDL cholesterol. The amount of cholesterol itself in the diet is of inferior importance.
If you need medication to treat high cholesterol, nicotinic acid (a form of vitamin B3) is superior to every known medicine. Both in strength of effect, and not least because it is without harmful side-effects. It normalises things without causing new imbalances.
Cholesterol is not only a problem. We need it, so the body is manufacturing it, and getting too little is not good either. It is necessary for the generation of hormones and for the growth of cell membranes - and for several other things. The real problem is an unsuitable human diet, which causes disturbance in the biochemical systems of the body.
VII. Vitamin D
Vitamin D has the specific quality that it can be generated on the skin when sunlight reaches the oils there. This is the best and most risk-free way to get this vitamin. Overdose, which can otherwise be very dangerous, becomes impossible. This reaction works only if you have the natural fat on the skin and no chemicals added. If you use sun oils, you will only get oxidation.
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