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Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Healthy Fats / Five Healthy Fats You MUST Have in Your Kitchen

Five Healthy Fats You MUST Have in Your Kitchen

by Sarah Pope / Affiliate Links ✔

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • Butter
  • Coconut Oil
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Animal Fat
  • High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil

Five healthy must-have fats to stock in your kitchen that with regular use facilitate the path to optimal vitality and wellness as exemplified by traditional cultures.

five healthy fats on a granite counter

When folks ask me for advice on how to change their diet for the better, I tell them that the quickest way to improve their health and just feel amazingly better in general (like, feel better tomorrow – that’s how fast this works) is to get the right healthy fats into their diet and the wrong (factory) fats out.

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Eating organic fruits/vegetables and grinding their own flour/making their own bread are usually the two changes that people want to do first, but the truth is, while important, these two things will have the least impact on your health in the immediate term.

I am very much a results-oriented kind of gal, so I try to tell folks what will give them the most bang for the buck right away.

Making significant changes to your diet with minimal impact on how you feel every day is very discouraging. That is why I tell people to get the fats right from the get-go.

The sad truth is that most folks have the fats totally wrong, even if they claim to eat healthily. Another eye-opening truth is that you have absolutely no chance at health if you don’t have the fats right! This is the critical first step toward your best health.

Get the healthy fats right and even if you continue to eat conventional produce and meats (I don’t necessarily advocate this – I am just trying to make a point), your health will blow away anyone who eats everything organic and has the fats wrong!

I know this from personal experience. Getting the fats right was the single change that I made almost ten years ago that finally made me feel terrific after years of eating organic fruits/veggies and meats and still feeling pretty lousy much of the time.

Surprised? Well, consider this. The cell wall of every single cell in the human body is made up of fat. Our very brain is made up of approximately 60% fat.  

Don’t those two factoids right there indicate in flashing neon lights the incredible importance of getting the right fats into our diet and how devastating eating the wrong ones can be? I hope anyone reading this blog isn’t still under the incredibly dangerous notion that eating a low-fat diet is a healthy thing to do.

If you are new to the idea that fats can be healthy, check out my article on the scam of skim milk.

Also note that every single healthy ancestral culture on the planet revered fats as the secret for keeping them healthy, fertile and resistant to infectious and chronic diseases. This startling anthropological discovery that conventional health authorities misguidedly gloss over was discovered by Dr. Weston A. Price early in the last century. (1)

With that, I will now reveal the Five Healthy Fats that you MUST have in your kitchen – assuming vibrant health is your goal, of course.

Butter

Ah, what can I say about grass-fed butter? It is one of the most perfect foods on this planet.

Like Julia Child, I have discovered over the years that you simply can’t eat too much butter. And, if you think you’re eating too much, you can always substitute cream, as Ms. Child is rumored to have said!

I like to joke with people that the more butter I eat, the slimmer I get! Butter was my secret weapon for staying trim even after having my third child in my forties.

If you are a butter lover too, you know from experience that there’s quite a bit of truth to that statement!

Deep yellow/orange butter from cows eating rapidly growing spring grass was considered a sacred food by the Traditional Swiss culture, a culture with young men so perfect and pleasing in physique, strength, and character that the Vatican favored these young men over all others to serve as the Papal Guard at the Vatican.

Want your children to have strong, robust physiques and healthy bone structure?   Eat lots of butter when you are pregnant and load up their food with it while they are in their growing years. Ignore the low-fat nonsense and see and feel the results for yourself.   Eating lots of butter stabilizes the blood sugar and significantly reduces or even eliminates sugar cravings.

Overconsumption of all things sweet and starchy and factory fats are the real villains for those with ill health, NOT whole, healthy fats like butter (2).

The cell wall of every cell in the human body is supposed to be composed of saturated fat, the wonderful fat that is so abundant in butter. Replace the real thing with margarine and the body will incorporate these inferior fats into the cell walls instead.

With the wrong type of fat making up the cell wall, intercellular communication breaks down and the cell itself is weakened.

Skin cells whose cell walls are composed of the fats from polyunsaturated vegetable oils (the main fat in the Western diet) instead of the much stronger saturated fats are more prone to damage from the sun and unsightly brown spots (or melasma if pregnant).

If, for no other reason than vanity, switch to butter and throw out those nasty vegetable oils.

Allergic to dairy and wondering what are good substitutes for butter? The linked article will help you navigate the maze of products on the market for a healthy alternative.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is loaded with medium-chain saturated fats which are utilized by the body for immediate energy! Want to feel better and have more energy and maybe even lose weight?

Incorporate this wonderful, healthy fat into your diet in generous amounts. Coconut oil is a highly stable oil, so much so, that you can keep it unrefrigerated in your pantry for years and it will not go rancid (I have a large bucket in my garage…it stays perfect through the long, hot, humid Florida summers!). It remains stable even at very high heat, so it is the ideal cooking oil.

I use coconut oil anytime a recipe calls for cooking oil or shortening. Coconut oil used in your baked goods will result in cookies, cakes, and pastries so moist – you and your family will be delighted.

Tip: I recommend expeller-pressed coconut oil if you don’t care for the mild coconut flavor of virgin coconut oil.

Pepperidge Farm used to use coconut oil in its line of cookies years ago, only to replace it with very unhealthy, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (aka, Factory Fats) when saturated fats became erroneously regarded as heart unhealthy.
 
Coconut oil, however, is now known to be extremely heart-healthy .. Traditional Cultures that consume coconuts and coconut oil have some of the lowest rates of heart disease in the world (not to mention are some of the slimmest people in the world).
 

Physiologically, coconut oil stimulates the thyroid gland, so it is a fantastic addition to the diet for those that tend toward hypothyroidism. By some estimates, about 80% of Westerners over the age of 25 falls under this category.

Lauric acid, a very important medium-chain saturated fatty acid, is found in abundance in coconut oil (but not MCT oil also called “liquid” coconut oil). Lauric acid is highly antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal.

And guess what? The human mammary gland produces lauric acid and it is contained in breastmilk! Anyone with candida issues of any kind should be regularly consuming coconut oil in their diet. Rubbing coconut oil into the scalp and then shampooing out is a wonderful home remedy for dandruff, a fungal infection of the skin.

If you have trouble stomaching the oil straight up, you can also take it as coconut oil capsules. If you have an allergy to coconut, try palm oil, red palm oil, or palm kernel oil, two other healthy tropical oils.

One word of warning, some folks experience skin or digestive issues from coconut oil. This article explains when to avoid coconut oil due to allergies or sensitivities.

Please see my resources page for where to buy quality coconut oil products.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Without a doubt, extra virgin olive oil is the best of the healthy fats to use for salad dressings. Why don’t all salad dressings at the store contain this wonderful Mediterranean oil?

What’s up with Annie’s brand of organic salad dressing at the health food store using canola or soybean oil? Update: now there is sunflower oil in there too. Has this company lost its mind? No, it is just more beholden to stockholders than customers. Canola, sunflower and soybean oil are all cheap oils that increase the profit margin.

Bottom line: Annie’s is too cheap to just use extra virgin olive oil. In case you haven’t noticed, extra virgin olive oil is rather expensive in comparison. You trade a lower price on industrialized oils with your health, so make sure you buy only extra virgin olive oil and not cheap, highly processed vegetable oil or products that contain them.

Best to make your own salad dressing at home using olive oil, used traditionally for centuries for just such a purpose! Oh, and please don’t use olive oil for high heat cooking! Olive oil is a delicate oil and is best used unheated, or at most, in a very low heat sauté. Best to avoid frying with it too. Much of its nutritional benefit is lost this way.
 

If, by chance, you are one of the folks who have trouble with olive oil and tend to put on weight quickly when you consume it, then try another traditional oil such as sesame or peanut oil with a tsp or two of added flax oil for your salad dressings instead.

Please see my shopping list for where to source vetted, 100% pure, unblended extra virgin olive oil.

Animal Fat

Animal fats such as schmaltz, goose, duck, tallow, and lard have nourished Traditional Cultures for centuries. And don’t forget about the rich yolks from pastured chicken, duck, and goose eggs!

Most people don’t even realize that McDonald’s used beef tallow to fry it’s french fries until the sea change in the restaurant industry some 30 years ago in favor of partially hydrogenated fats caused the unfortunate switch to these very unhealthy Factory Fats!

When I make homemade chicken, beef, or duck stock, I freeze in one-quart containers and then easily peel off the fat that freezes on top to use for cooking. Animal fat imparts valuable nutrition and wonderful flavor to roast vegetables.

The reason many kids won’t eat veggies is that they are so tasteless! Roasting organic vegetables in a bit of chicken fat makes them absolutely delicious. My kids frequently ask why the veggies in restaurants are so tasteless and why the ones cooked at home are so yummy. Now you know the secret that Traditional Cultures always practiced!

Beef tallow can’t be beaten for making healthy homemade french fries! Whoever thought that healthy eating could taste so fantastic! Liberal use of traditional animal fats in the kitchen makes this possible.

For more on healthy fats from animals, refer to the articles on how to render tallow and how to render lard.

High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil

Rounding out the Five Fats you must have in your kitchen is Granny’s favorite, cod liver oil. Cod liver oil contains omega 3, essential fatty acids that most Westerners are severely deficient in. Deficiency in these delicate omega 3 fats invites inflammation in the body which leads to innumerable conditions and illnesses. This vetted brand is high quality and no heat processed.

Unlike plain fish oil or krill oil, cod liver oil also contains vitamins A and D in their natural state.

Vitamins A and D, when taken together in whole food like cod liver oil, work synergistically to improve the function of every system in the human body!

The importance of Vitamin D in cod liver oil cannot be underestimated with regard to its positive effects on health. Vitamin D deficiency is even said to be the reason many people get the flu.

Well, there you have it. The Five Fats that when incorporated into your diet will most certainly improve your health and vitality.  Once you throw out the Factory Fats you are currently using such as butter substitutes and vegetable oils and replace them with the Five Healthy Fats described in this blog, you will very likely begin to feel improved energy right away.

The most striking change that occurred immediately for me when I got my fats right was a rapid reduction in sugar cravings!

Getting the fats right is the only way I have ever found for people to reduce and eventually eliminate their sugar addiction. Any other approach is temporary at best and relies solely on will power rather than the body being nourished and not needing the sugar (remember that the body converts sugar to saturated fat, so if your diet is low in saturated fat, you will be plagued with sugar cravings that cannot be controlled).

If this is your experience as well, I would love to hear about it as well as any other improvements you’ve noticed in your health once the fats get fixed.

References

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
Study Fails to Link Saturated Fat and Heart Disease

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Category: Healthy Fats, Healthy Living
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: the bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her eBooks Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

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Reader Interactions

Comments (259)

  1. Sheri

    Sep 19, 2017 at 12:22 pm

    I’ve noticed that menopausal symptoms have disappeared since I started ignoring all of the dietary lies that I heard while growing up. I sleep well now and don’t have anymore night sweating … and I’m 51 – right smack-dab in the middle of it all! No Hormone Replacement Therapy or anything like that either. Just lots of healthy fats and other healthy whole foods.

    Reply
  2. Roger

    Sep 3, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    Hi Sarah.

    Are the same negative results found for cold pressed Canola or UK Rapeseed oil. Does the same processing apply to cold pressed Canola or UK Rapeseed which is basically the same as Canola. It would be interesting to hear your vies on this.

    Reply
    • Sarah

      Sep 3, 2017 at 6:03 pm

      Rapeseed oil is just as bad as canola. Should be on the “never eat” list.

  3. Louis

    Aug 3, 2015 at 1:37 pm

    Hi Sarah! Love this website and really appreciate your voice!

    You mention at the bottom of the article that excess sugar turns into saturated fat??? I don’t think that right…..Tags maybe?? Isn’t that what you meant?

    Reply
  4. Javier

    Sep 16, 2014 at 11:06 pm

    I don’t understand if people are against polyunsaturated oils why is
    fermented cod liver oil ok?

    Polyunsaturated oils are VERY unstable, oxidizing quickly when
    exposed to oxygen, light and heat—even just sitting in a bottle, but
    also when they go into our bodies—and turning rancid. (including
    omegas) Also Fermented foods require a glucose source to create
    (metabolize) a by-product e.g. lactic acid that prevents the food from
    decomposing. The result is a pleasant sour taste that one would find
    with sauerkraut, pickles, yogurt, etc. Cod liver oil has no glucose
    and cod livers have very little glucose (mostly protein, fat, water
    and some minerals). The livers and the oil simply go from fresh to
    rancid in a short period of time. If left to continue decomposing the
    oil will become putrid leaving a foul smell and taste.

    Furthermore, Cod, like Shark, are long-lived fish. As they go about
    living for years and years, and during that time, they accumulate
    environmental toxins.
    And the toxins are most concentrated in the livers. So when you drink
    Cod liver oil, you should expect environmental toxins! That just makes
    sense!

    Sadly, atlantic Cod is an over-fished and threatened species.

    Why not just eat more fish and liver and gain similar yet better
    benefits since it’s a food source?

    Reply
    • LB

      Jan 8, 2015 at 8:34 pm

      I wouldn’t heat pure cod liver oil because it’s so needing taking straight away and I do recommend the brand above because it’s not processed and is pure good fats taken carefully from the inside of the fishes liver the most purest form out there you are ever to get
      I hear a lot of aggression and attacks on honesty of other oils being not good for heating
      We are brought up by a lot of deception
      biggest one is fat is bad for us
      but why don’t you try having these oils cold to mes and heating up high temperature sustainable fats like butter coconut oil etc ones that you can see for yourself remain the same whether heated or not
      your health and your choice

  5. Kathy

    May 14, 2014 at 5:18 pm

    You say don’t do high heat cooking with olive oil. So what fat are we suppose to use for cooking if canola oil is not good for us?

    Reply
    • Cathy's

      Jul 9, 2014 at 7:31 am

      I wondered the same, but then thought of coconut oil. I would imagine if it can be stored in a garage in Florida, then it can be used in high heat cooking.

    • LB

      Jan 8, 2015 at 8:39 pm

      To answer both of your questions
      yes coconut oil can be used in cooking foods and butter and animal fat and ghee and lard 😉 hope that helps

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    Apr 18, 2014 at 10:19 pm

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