Eating Plant Fat: A Slippery Balance
Hi Byte Wellness Fam,
Happy Mother’s Day weekend to all our Mamas! We love you! We don’t know where we’d be without you! Thank you for pouring so much love into us and for teaching us (in your own ways) what if means to care for ourselves.
Hope you can all find time to take care of yourselves AND the mothers in your lives this weekend. Taking care of ourselves is our main priority every week in our Daily Wellness Texts and our Weekly workshops. This week, we introduced a new Sweet Potato Soul recipe for a DIY vinaigrette salad dressing. And, we talked about how to pump up our salad dressings with as much nutritious plant fat as possible!
You can watch the recording of our last workshop (posted in our community) here!
Plant Fat for Life
Of all of food’s building blocks (nutrients), fat gets the worst rap!
Mass media messaging has us thinking fat is bad for us. But, the reality is that we need fat! The high-level summary is that fat helps us with the structure and function of our cells.
Look. Fat forms our cell walls. Fat helps our cells talk to each other in order to control inflammation and allergy responses and pain.
You know the NSAID pills like ibuprofen/motrin, naproxen/aleve? Those pills cut down pain and inflammation by blocking the receptors of chemicals (COX signalers). What are those COX signalers made from… (you guessed it) fats!
If you were to draw out the blueprint of how human bodies work, fats and the chemicals they turn into would be EVERYWHERE in that diagram.
In fact, Mother’s Day is a great time to talk about fat because it’s essential in maintaining a healthy pregnancy and supporting an uncomplicated miscarriage.
There are some fats (polyunsaturated fats like omega 3s and omega 6s) that our bodies can’t make, so we have to make sure we eat enough of them.
Of course, having more fat than our bodies can store can have negative health consequences like obesity and other metabolic disorders that can lead to heart attack, stroke and obesity-related cancers. (Think of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes).
So, with fat, as with most things health and wellness-related, balance is key.
DIY salad dressing is a perfect opportunity to create more fat balance in our lives by using plant oils with high-quality fat profiles that prioritize unsaturated fat over saturated fat.
What Are the 3 Types of Fat?
Let’s take a look at 3 major types of fat and some of the things they do for us.
Saturated Fat- support cell and organ structure
Unsaturated Fatty Acids
Monounsaturated Fatty Acids- form a layer in our cell walls and coat nerve cells so we can think and move.
Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids- these are essential fatty acids. They create chemicals that help our cells talk to each other in every organ system. They balance inflammation, allergic responses, pain and pregnancy.
Omega 3s
Omega 6s
Transsaturated Fatty Acids- usually artificial and added to foods for texture and shelf-life.
What Are Essential Fats?
Our polyunsaturated fats (or PUFAs for short) are essential fatty acids. That means we have to eat them in our food because we can’t make them on our own even though our body needs them in order to function.
How does our salad dressing help us get good fat?
First, replacing animal fats with plant oils (not coconut or palm oil) is a surefire way to improve the fat quality in our dressing.
Plant oils generally have much less saturated fat (which, in excess, can increase risk of heart disease) and much more heart-healthy unsaturated fat.
Check the diagram above to compare the saturated fat in animal fats like lard and butter to that in plant oils. Butter has nearly 10 times the percentage of saturated fat as the same weight of Canola oil.
Second, using oils like olive oil, canola oil, flaxseed oil and avocado oil in our salad dressing means that we’re getting a relatively favorable balance of polyunsaturated omega 3 and omega 6 oils.
Not all PUFAs are created equal! While we need both omega 3s and omega 6s, they serve very different functions in our bodies. Our bodies turn omega 3s into chemicals that are mainly anti-inflammatory. But, we turn omega 6s into chemicals that are mainly pro-inflammatory.
What Is a “Healthy” omega 6:3 ratio?
To be clear we need a balance both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory engines that are powered by omega 6s and omega3s, respectively! Neither is bad!
But, our Western lifestyle (filled with packaged foods that feature omega-6-heavy plant oils like palm oil and sunflower oil) tends to throw us out of that balance. Unless we fight it, this lifestyle pushes us wayyyyy closer to the pro-inflammatory side than our bodies want to be. Then, we need more omega 3s to regain balance.
The average American eats an omega 6:3 ratio around 12:1, according to the USDA, while research suggests an omega 6:omega 3 ratio of closer to 2:1 is more closely linked to women maintain a healthy weight compared to higher ratios.
Discussion Question:
When you eat a salad, what type of dressing do you usually use (if any)?
This is a good starting point to recognize how far you'll have to go to shift towards plant-based dressings. For example, if your favorite dressings are ranch or caesar (which are traditionally made with cream, milk or other animal fats), are you open to trying a vinaigrette? Let me know where you stand?
Happy Healthy Living!
Dr. Wuse