How to Stock Up On Healthy Fats

Fat is back.

After decades in exile, being blamed for everything from obesity to the Star Wars prequel trilogy, fat is slowly starting to clear its name.

There really wasn’t anything of substance to hold against it in the first place, but a perfect storm of bad science, media sensationalism, and misguided governmental programs helped to cement the idea in most peoples’ minds that fat is bad.

But people started questioning authority. They saw how little they succeeded on low-fat diets (and hated eating food that tasted worse than the cardboard boxes they came in).

No doubt fat has a long way to go until it reaches a true renaissance, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a little debauchery while getting healthy at the same time right now.

Adding fat to your food is one surefire way to turn up the flavor to 11. Here’s a list of the best ones to keep on hand, plus some guidance on how to navigate the rest.

Nutritionism Revisited

First, all fat was bad.

Then, unsaturated fat was good while only saturated fat was bad.

Now, omega–3 and omega–6 polyunsaturated fats are all the rage, while trans fats are the devil. (Oh yeah, and saturated fat is still bad.)

Get used to it folks. The nutrition world is just going to get more and more complex, and what’s “good” and “bad” is always going to be changing.

You can get really hung up on what science says is “good food” and “bad food” today, but it’s going to be a completely different story tomorrow.

My criteria for food healthiness goes something like this: The longer humans have been eating something, the more you should eat of it.

Evolution is cruel force, and it ensures that no species can survive on a diet of food that will kill it before it can reproduce.

I’ve said it before, but it’s impossible that meat and animal products are 1% as bad as you hear about in the mainstream media. We would have gone extinct long ago if this was the case.

Admittedly, this rule of thumb isn’t terribly scientific in the strictest sense, but if it works why not keep using it?

The one thing worth taking away from nutritionism for this article is that saturated fats are better for cooking than unsaturated fats.

Saturated fats are stable and non-reactive, while unsaturated fats (particularly polyunsaturated fats) are susceptible to oxidation.

Furthermore, all fats have a “smoke point” temperature where they should no longer be used.

Bottom line: you shouldn’t set off your smoke detector when you are heating up oil in your kitchen.

Butter

Butter’s had a rough go of it.

After The Great Fat Scare, most people ditched it en masse for such monstrosities as margarine.

But it’s time to put butter back in the fridge.

Time has vindicated most fat from the charges laid against it. And the trans-fat controversy of a few years back shows that food from fields and farms is almost always better than that from factories and laboratories.

Humans have been eating butter for thousands of years, so the likelihood of it being dangerous is quite low.

Butter is dirt cheap and can be bought just about everywhere, from the farmers market to the gas station.

Plain butter is best for topping off cooked food or low-heat cooking. It contains solids that burn at a low temperature.

One solution is to use ghee instead, which is butter that has had the solids strained out.

Ghee can be found in most co-ops and natural foods stores, or you can make it yourself by melting down butter and straining it through cheesecloth.

If that sounds like a pain, you might just want to stick with another of the high-saturated fats I list later.

Olive Oil

Thanks to the popularity of the Mediterranean diet and low-saturated fat diets in general, olive oil can be found at any supermarket you go to.

However, this is one thing that I suggest you don’t just grab whatever’s cheapest.

Olive oil goes rancid, which means it not only can taste off, but may potentially be detrimental to your health as well.

Colavita and Goya are two prominent brands that you can find most places. You can always go to your Fancy Pants Food store if you want to increase the likelihood of you getting the good stuff. Trader Joe’s is a good budget option if you have one nearby.

Technically speaking, olive oil stands up to heat relatively well, but it really is at its best when you use it as-is, as a topping for meat and veggies, or a component of an easy-to-make sauce such as vinaigrette.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is the “it” fat of the moment. More and more supermarkets are carrying it every day. I’ve even noticed Trader Joe’s start to stock it in the last few months.

It has the “health halo” of being a vegetable oil while having the tastiness of a highly-saturated fat.

In fact, coconut oil is one of nature’s most highly concentrated sources of saturated fat.

Which can only mean one thing…

Coconut oil is perhaps the best frying oil you can buy.

Unlike the fragile oils composed of unsaturated fat, coconut oil holds up well for heavy-duty tasks such as searing meat.

Which isn’t to detract from the taste, which is delicious. Even if you aren’t a big fan of coconut, the refined oil mellows it out and makes it a great all-purpose frying oil.

Coconut oil will set you back more than butter or olive oil, but it’s a good idea to keep a jar around, if only for high-heat frying.

Sesame Oil

Sesame oil is one of the oldest vegetable oils and is still manufactured by a labor-intensive method.

It has an extraordinarily high amount of unstable and pro-inflammatory omega–6 fatty acids, which is the reason that most vegetable oils make my short list of “things to avoid eating.”

So why does sesame oil make the cut?

Because you use so little of it.

Think of sesame oil as kinda like hot sauce. The flavor’s really concentrated, so you don’t need a whole lot. You put a few dashes on your food and you’re ready to go.

It’s insanely flavorful. And particularly well-suited for Asian dishes.

I’ve found it to be pretty widely available, although not so much as olive oil. It tends to be a little more expensive, but a little goes a long way.

Lard

It’s coming back!

No other fat has been a bigger victim of the low fat health fad than lard. In a matter of decades, it went from one of the most-consumed fats in America to one of the most difficult to find.

The apparent deathblow was dealt by vegetable shortening, which was marketed as a “healthier” alternative, even though the charge was led by Crisco, which is short for “crystallized cottonseed oil”. (Ewwwww…)

But sure enough, as people are becoming more and more skeptical of low-fat diets, lard is making its way onto more and more supermarket shelves.

Lard has a decently high smoke point, and the lack of solids make it a better choice than butter for frying, though perhaps not as good as coconut oil.

If you are going to track down lard, beware the hydrogenated stuff. You don’t want your food messed with like that. Unfortunately, I’ve found that this is the most common lard on the market.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The list of fats and oils doesn’t stop there. There is an endless supply at your local supermarket vying for your attention.

Shelves are overflowing with nut and seed oils such as canola, sunflower, corn, soybean, and my favorite, plain ol’ “vegetable oil.” (What’s with the vague labeling, bub?)

These oils are almost always high in unstable (read: probably rancid) polyunsaturated fats and low in stable saturated fats. Best to avoid ’em.

Avocado oil and macadamia oil are a couple of recent entrants that seem highly decent on the surface. They’re low in the omega–6 polyunsaturated fats that make me worry about the other nut and seed oils.

But I’m by nature leery of foods that humans have been eating for less than 100 years, if for no other reason than the inability to really prove that humans can thrive long-term on them.

Palm oil seems good on the surface, but it’s a horribly inefficient crop, taking up a lot of land and displacing endangered orangutans.

Fish oil and flax oil are used more as a supplementary food. But if you are avoiding most heavily-processed foods and eating seafood, you’ll be better off.

Many other animal fats, such as tallow and duck fat, exist but are very difficult to find. (And are probably not worth the effort.

What are the fats you like to keep on hand?