Fat: The Good, the Bad, and the Really Ugly—Part I
Like spaghetti westerns, dietary fats tend to inspire delight, disdain, or both at the same time. We either hate to love them or love to hate them. This ambivalence is fueled by understandable confusion. Some diets avoid all fats like the plague, while others are virtuously low in fat and still others include surprisingly large amounts. Staples like milk, meat, and eggs keep swinging in and out of favor; the once-lauded hydrogenated oils are now evil trans-fats, and bad cholesterol is gaining acceptance as a disease.
While controversy may be stimulating food for thought, it doesn’t digest so well. We need a place of harmony and balance for the fat in our food and in our flesh. The meal plans laid out in the Edgar Cayce readings have helped many to find this happy “middle” ground.
The best way to start is to look at the sources of fat in our diets. Very broadly, all are of either animal or vegetable origin. Most menu outlines found in the readings include items from both of these groups. Exceptions point to special, usually temporary, health considerations.
This installment will focus on animal fat. Cayce’s preferred sources are certain types of dairy products, egg yolks, and fish oils. It goes without saying that these should be organic so that the nutritional benefits are not outweighed by the risks.
In the readings, milk in moderate amounts is generally regarded as a body builder and an easily digested food so long as it is not added to coffee or tea or combined with citrus juices at a meal. This is especially true for children and those who need to gain weight and stamina as part of their recovery:
Now the body only needs rest, plenty of food . . . that digests well with the system. Milk, olive oil, and any condition that builds fat tissue in the system without taxing the digestive organism, or overtaxing liver or kidneys, see?
137-85
As that ideal weight is regained, the fat content in the milk can be reduced:
Whole milk isn’t always the best! It is best if you want to keep fat! That’s what they give their pigs—usually! But keep down calories and too much of fats.
257-240
In many cases, buttermilk and yogurt (Bulgarian milk) are preferred for their digestibility and other intestinal benefits:
Also we would add Yogurt in the diet as an active cleanser through the colon and intestinal system. This would be most beneficial, not only purifying the alimentary canal but adding the vital forces necessary to enable those portions of the system to function in the nearer normal manner.
1542-1
. . . Milk—this in some manners is taboo for the body, yet in others is excellent. Those of the Bulgarian milk, or of the buttermilk would be the better for the system. This is acid in its reaction, to be sure, in some cases. Not so here! for the bacilli as is created in system through same will produce effects such that we will have a cleansed colon by the use of same.
5525-1
Cheese is more problematical as it is often high in fat and may not combine well with carbohydrates. However, the path of caution lies in moderate amounts:
. . . A great deal of fats will be hard on the body, as indicated by the lack of ability for digesting greases in the present. Butter fats and cheeses and such are well to be taken in moderation.
1409-9
Approval is also given to butter, advised in small amounts in numerous readings:
In the diets, keep away from fats of most any nature, though butter—to be sure—or milk, may be taken in moderation.
189-7
Mornings—citrus fruits with little else, unless brown toast and butter, or coffee and toast and butter, or rice cakes, or the like.
265-7
Some readings clearly propose butter as a substitute for meat fat when preparing various foods:
Coddled eggs, or prepared in any manner just so they are not fried in grease. Scrambled in butter would be very well . . .
306-3
. . . Do not have these {vegetables} cooked with pork of any kind! Most of the grease used with these should be butterfat, when they are cooked—see?
278-1
. . . No particles of grease {in beef juice}, other than butter in same.
261-20
This is not to say that butter is regarded as a perfect food for all. Trouble digesting fats with resulting skin rash means it’s time to cut back at least temporarily and switch to vegetable oils:
. . . Not too much of grease of any nature, though butter—preferably those of the nut variety—may be used.
91-1
. . . {Corn cakes} when taken should be prepared in butter—or with the fats from vegetables rather than from the animal fat . . .
259-7
Eggs, included in hundreds of meal plans, are highly recommended with no expressed concerns as to their fat content. While the white portion is sometimes found to be overly acidic, the yolk is almost universally advised. Preparation methods mentioned include soft boiling, soft scrambling, and hard cooking. Use of meat fat here is a very definite no-no:
Do not eat fried foods of any kind, ever; especially not fried eggs . . .
1586-1
Olive oil, salad dressing, and mayonnaise are all mentioned in connection with hard-cooked eggs. The yolk can even be a dressing ingredient:
. . . Preferably use the oil dressings; as olive oil with paprika, or such combinations. Even egg may be included in same, preferably the hard egg (that is the yolk) and it worked into the oil as a portion of the dressing.
935-1
An exceptional source of a beneficial kind of fat that is extremely high in vitamins A and D is found in the oil from certain kinds of fish. This may be one reason why so many readings prefer seafood to other forms of animal protein:
In the diet, do keep body-building foods . . . Not too much of fats, but foods that are easily assimilated; plenty of fish, both canned and fresh. Doing these, we should bring the better conditions for this body.
3267-1
Some readings also focus on supplemental fish oils such as cod liver or halibut oil in liquid or tablet form:
. . . the properties in the Cod Liver Oil or Halibut Oil or those things that give co-resistances in the vitamins that such carry into the body.
1278-6
. . . The use of those properties as will be found in that of the fish oils, or of those that are mono-hydrated . . .
2654-2
. . . We would use . . . codliver oil . . . This is as of sunlight taken into the gastric forces, of especially the duodenum.
501-1
Unlike most animal fats, which are highly saturated (more on this later), fish oils are a highly unsaturated kind known as omega-3s. The largest amounts of these unusual fatty acids are found in oily fish from cold northern waters such as sardines, herring, mackerel, bluefish, salmon, and albacore tuna.
According to holistic wellness advocate, Dr. Andrew Weil, omega-3s are extremely important to health:
They appear to reduce inflammatory changes in the body, protect against abnormal blood clotting, and, possibly, protect against cancer and degenerative changes in cells and tissues. A great deal of research suggests that optimal diets should include sources of these hard-to-find compounds.