fat city
In the last post—The Short And Sweet Of It?—we briefly discussed the health consequences of America’s love affair with sugar. We know we eat too much sugar, it’s likely our biggest health problem, but the sugar habit is hard to break. So this first step was proposed as Healthy Change #1: If you consume sodas or other sugared drinks, limit yourself to one (12 oz.) serving per week. We’re not done with sugar, we’ll return to reducing sugar intake in later posts.
This post gets after the next unhealthy food we persist in eating: hydrogenated trans fat. In the 20th century we abandoned traditional fats like butter and lard in favor of modern factory-made fats, such as Crisco and margarine. We now know this was a very big mistake. As our consumption of traditional fats declined in favor of factory fats, there was a parallel increase in cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases.
In the last 30 years we went on a reduced-fat binge, which meant avoiding animal fats in favor of factory-processed vegetable oils. Another big mistake; the result was we ate more trans fats and less of the healthy omega-3 fats. By now, just about everyone knows that trans fats should be avoided. So here is a good start on doing this (more to come):
This means no French fries, no onion rings, no corn dogs, no donuts, and especially, no deep-fried Twinkies. The language of this Healthy Change does leave a door open: you can cook these foods at home, using healthy oil. Because this is difficult, in our home we replaced French fries with oven-roasted potatoes (recipe coming soon!).
How did trans fats become so entrenched in our diet? It started with the invention of hydrogenation and the introduction of Procter & Gamble’s Crisco in 1911. Crisco shortening was followed by the introduction of a butter substitute, margarine. Both these products are full of trans fats and depleted of healthy omega-3 fats. Because hydrogenated oils are cheap and have a long shelf life, they also found their way into a multitude of processed foods and fast foods.
What was most remarkable about Crisco was how easily it replaced a product people had used for centuries—lard. It happened practically overnight. A 1921 book, The Story of Crisco, tells how the product was presented: It seems strange to many that there can be anything better than butter for cooking, or of greater utility than lard, and the advent of Crisco has been a shock to the older generation, born in an age less progressive than our own, and prone to contend that the old fashioned things are good enough. It was a clever pitch that disarmed the wisdom of tradition and it worked.
As it turns out, the “older generation” was quite wise in preferring olden ways. The rest of us ate Crisco and margarine for a long time before we learned how harmful trans fats were to our health. Today the merits of the old fats—butter, olive oil, and lard—are being rediscovered.
Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.
Sunday, January 9, 2011 at 8:32PM | by Skip Hellewell | 33 Comments | 4 References | Share Article | in chronic diseases, fats 101, healthy change | Email Article
Reader Comments (33)
Micah, thanks for joining the WoW food reformation. Hope you'll share this blog with your circle of influence. One of the challenges is getting the buy-in of the children to healthier eating. When they make the connection, Mom's job is easier. Ronald is a very bad guy, warn the kids. Best, Skip
I am looking to keeping up with your posts regarding health. Thanks for the information so far.
Within the last year my husband and I have cut out processed food and moved toward eating real, whole foods. In May of last year I began to question the amount of meat I consumed (it was the same amount I had grown up eating in my own family, and had seen others eating at BYU http://thatwifeblog.com/2010/05/cutting-back-on-meat/) and then I read Foer's book Eating Animals and decided to make the switch toward being an almost-vegetarian (http://thatwifeblog.com/2010/08/eating-animals-2/), consuming almost no meat in the summer and eating more in the winter. It's strange to me that after all of these years I can see how the Lord's Words of Wisdom work so well and make me feel so great!
I'm so happy to see another LDS member writing about the Word of Wisdom in this way, and I'll be putting up a post about your blog on my own tomorrow. I'm excited to follow along with each of your healthy changes. So far, I haven't had to make any changes to my diet because they are things we are already doing!
Again, thank you for taking the time to write the things you do. I think you're really going to make a difference in people's lives!
I think this is an awesome blog. I'm excited for you to share what you've learned. But I wondered if when you explained the Word of Wisdom, you used the actual scripture to back up your info like you did the Bible. If it's canonized it would be nice to see it referenced other than just "mormon" scripture. You could even provide a link like you do to your other scientific and informative books. Just a thought.
No more doughnuts??? Are you sure? Oh man, okay. The first challenge was easy, since I don't really like soda, but this is a little more challenging. But I can do it!! I know you're right and I know I"ll feel better.
I'm a total fan of your blog and what you have going here. I have become more and more interested in nutrition, to the point of taking classes on it simply to learn more about it from experts. I love what you have to say so far, and am curious if you know about JuicePlus. And your thoughts on it?!
Hi, i'm very excited about your blog, I'm not American, I'm from Spain but i must say that the influence of bad food habits is increase here, so i'm worried. However, the fats that you use to cook are not commonly used in my country; at home, we always cook with olive oil, even the sweet dishes like biscuits are made with olive oil (although we use butter or margarine too) so I think that the big problem for us, and even for you, are the food that you buy and you haven't prepared at home, cause you don't really know the fats that they use to make them. In my country, is not required to note in the package if it has, for example, trans fats. The solution is prepared everyting by yourself, but that's really difficult! Congrats for your blog, I think it's important for everyone in any country to try to improve our food habits
Ireth, Bien venidos. Processed foods, especially "fast food", is an American export, I'm afraid. We look to Europe for healthy food ideas. You are right about home cooking--it's safer but it takes time. Our goal is to find the best combination--healthy food that doesn't take hours to prepare. Please continue to share your food traditions. Skip
Arghhh! I'm from the South, man. Give up fried food?!?! Actually, now that I live in the Pacific NW and my hubby didn't grow up eating the fried stuff like me, I've gotten away from it - a bit. A very Southern question for you, though. So, lard . . . one of the very traditional things my mother and grandmother's use (besides Crisco) is bacon grease stored at room temperature. Is that lard or is that something different?
Joy, you've set a record for most comments. Lard is being rediscovered, for baking and other uses. Bacon grease is not lard, but similar as they come from the same animal. Best, Skip
Thanks for this fantastic blog! My mom Tess had dinner with you last night and raved about the enchiladas.
We've run our cars (and now our farm tractor) strictly on used vegetable oil for the last four years. I keep telling myself, "corn for the ox"... my car being the ox. When we pick up the used vegetable oil from restaurants and see the unnatural goop that had just recently been food, it really kills our appetite for fried foods. If anyone is every having an insatiable craving for fried foods, they should walk behind the restaurant and look in their oil disposal container.
Speaking of corn, I developed a corn intolerance during my last pregnancy that just recently went away. It was a big change to cut out ALL corn products from my diet, but I ended up eating much healthier because of it... when you avoid anything with corn syrup, corn flour or corn oil, you cut out most of these products we're told to avoid. I was told that many Americans are developing this intolerance because we are so inundated with corn. Will we see a future blog post on this? Is it corn itself or the factory produced derivations of corn?
Thanks again for the blog. I'm now a committed reader and will be passing the URL on to everyone I know.
Aja, you have a fascinating mom. Re your temporary corn intolerance that actually caused you to eat better, it is the same for celiac disease. The best diet for celiac disease (I read) is actually a W of W diet that avoids processed foods and is high in vegetables, legumes, fruits, grains (other than wheat, barley or rye), nuts and a little meat. Like the ubiquitous corn (and soy) byproducts in processed foods, wheat byproducts including gluten are also found in many processed foods. Some see the corn intolerance problem as being a GMO issue; more research is needed. One thing is clear: it's best to eat foods close to their natural form and minimize factory foods.
I just found your blog today and this post spoke to me...I go the opposite route...I only eat deep fried foods out, but we eat out only once or twice a month! My favorite place is an old-school hamburger place--they grind their own meat, etc--and have a "royal burger" that has one single onion ring on it. Perfect. I get my fix with no temptation to overindulge.
Your posts are really interesting and challenging--I envy people who found you at the start of the year--what a healthier year they've had!