Organic Milk Has More Omega3

Say giuro!

Spice It Up!

Cooking low-fat is hard also because the food might not taste as rich.

However, there are some interesting ways of making the taste richer, one of which is the liberal use of spice (some of them, like oregano and cloves, have loads of omega3s). McCormick's site has an awesome Spice Encyclopedia you can use.

The importance of omega3s for all the aspects of our health is reviewed in detail here.

Finally, my last gift for today: a Gourmet Calculator.

Hints for Low-Fat Cooking

Just today I was reached by this wonderful About.com link.

Among the many things, that I already knew, I wanted to highlight some stuff.

1. Oils:
remember some basic things:

A. Every solid oil contains transfats (margarine), saturated fats (coconut oil) or both (butter);
B. the more the omega3s an oil contains the less suitable it is for frying, because the double binds of omega3s, when heated, change configuration and make them become transfats.

Ideally, the best pick is a liquid oil whose fats are mainly saturated, like coconut(click on the slide to see its characteristics) or palm oil, but this is not healthy for your heart. Use sparingly. Plus, if you want to be sure it has no transfats, buy the virgin organic freshly squeezed one. If you fry more often and saturated fats would be too much for you, you can try using an oil that is high in monosaturated fatty acids, for example olive oil, but keep in mind that there are other substances in olive oil whose benefits would go lost completely when cooked.

Note: there are many dietetic fads. One of which is coconut oil, the other one is olive oil. The former tells you that coconut oil "makes you thin", supposedly by virtue of MCTs (medium chain tryglycerides) that aren't absorbed or metabolized as fats. The latter tells you that olive oil is always ok, frying included, while it is composed of 70% of monounsaturated fatty acids that will turn into transfats if heated.

2. Among extra lean meat, consider eating game: it's tasty, lean, and the few meat it contains is mainly omega3s. All wild animals, that is game, wild animals and grass-fed ones, have higher omega3s content.

3. Buy an appropriate set of knives: cutting fat from meat and poultry can be hard (and dangerous) without such specific tools.

4. Also learn to use parchment paper and aluminum foil to bake food into; "fry" omelettes by putting their ingredient in a ziplock bag, close it and cook it in boiling water; marinade vegetables and meat and then roast/grill it without oil; steam with herbs in the water so to give additional taste to the dish you're preparing; substitute butter with a mix of soy lecithin, apple sauce and cornstarch, and so on. Be creative.

5. If after draining you don't like the shallow taste (it does happen), add spices to flavour, cornstarch to thicken and, finally, some fresh flaxseed oil when the dish is on your plate.

6. Remember vegetables too contain fats. Do NOT think their are fatless when you do the counting.

7. When coating in breadcrums, do your own ones, starting from French bread, which is entirely fat free.

8. Remember to check for the amount of fat on sausages of any kind. Some still are 17-18%! Choose sausages from organic grass-fed chicken and turkey.

9. Replace oil for sauteing with bacon or pancetta, then skim the excess floating fat.

10. Use organic eggs, they have a higher omega3s content and a lot of lecithin, which keep them digestible and emulsified.

11. Eat fish that are "meat-like" as far as proteins are involved, like tuna or sardines. Similarly, use legumes or eggs or dairy to substitute meat. Eat at least two dishes of omega3 rich wild fish a week (salmon, mackerel, tuna, sardines, anchovies).

12. Also use low-fat bouillon powder, not cubes, because cubes have an awful lot of transfats.

13. Beware of fat-free dairies. Most of them contain transfats or mono and diglycerides (called from E471 on in Eu).

14. Also line your tarts with a small amount of butter and plain old simple French bread breadcrums.

15. Also over fry fishsticks.

16. Don't forget to also use cornstarch, or agar, or carrageenin to thicken homemade sauces.

17. Only eat cheese without added preservatives.

18. Make your own low-fat yougurt, sourcream, buttermilk. You can even make cheese. And you'll know what's in it.

19. If you use fat free cream cheese for cheesecake, add an additional eggwhite to keep it together.

20. Replace the rest of it with soy lecithin.

There's More To It Than Low-Fat

Despite a low-fat diet, some fat free foods still made me sick, and I couldn't understand why for the life of mine. Once, I had eaten a 2.4% fat chocolate sorbet with fat free whipped cream and I still got sick!! Patterns seemed herratic... I couldn't understand the meaning of it all.

I started - surprise surprise - reading the food labels and... I made some important discoveries!!!!!

Aside from the illness per se and the low tolerance to high amounts of fats, there are some substances that make me sick no matter what. I found it out by journaling the food I was eating and the symptoms I was having (that's a technique that is used for bipolar, in which one charts his/her moods AND what happens in their life).

These substances are used as food preservatives, emulsifiers, and substitutes of fats.

First big thing I discovered:

Foods advertised as fat-free might not be fat free, for three reasons:
1. the FDA regulation allows manufacturers to claim a food is fat-free when the fat concentration is less than 0.5 grams per serving. When the serving is below 0.5 gram (like for PAM spray), it can be labelled as fat-free even if the whole serving is composed of fats (that's what happened to me with the "I can't believe it's not butter" JUST before Thanksgiving!);
2. up to January 2006, trans fats were NOT included in the count of fats you find on the label (!!!) and the FDA allows manufacturers to still sell food with old labels provided the food was labelled before Jan 1st 2006;
3. mono and diglycerides (which basically are fats, but broken down in their components) are NOT counted as fats in the label.

Trans fats are also called partially hydrogenated fats and are artificial fats that aren't absorbed or digested by our bowel (thereby creating diarrhea!!). Even bacteria can't eat them, which is why they are used as preservatives (the food spoils later because even bacteria can NOT eat them!!!!). Interestingly, the "average" American eats up to 6 grams of trans fats a day, and diarrhea starts at 10 grams (some 30 grams "fat-free" chips, or cookies, are enough to go way above this limit).

Mono and dyglycerides are byproducts of fats (called triglycerides). When you eat them you eat exactly the same amount of calories you get from fats. They too can give diarrhea, especially in allergic people and especially in people allergic/intolerant to aspirin.


Second big thing I discovered:

Later, when I got back to Italy, some OTHER artificial food addictives, preservatives, emulsifiers, leviting agents and dyes can ALSO give problems. I have a whole list of all these substances, which ones are ok and which ones are bad, I will post them later.

Now, back to when I was in the States. I wanted to cook some Italian dishes but I couldn't find swiss chard. I got pointed to Whole Foods and I started buying organic food. Note: I had never bought organic stuff and thought that it was pure quackery. But I improved so much in my condition that now I eat organic only (OR industrial food without those nasty preservatives, trans fats and mono/diglycerides).


Third big thing I discovered:
The reason for organic food is healthier are two folds:

1. it's without nasty substances (preservatives, dyes, etc etc), and
2. it has loads of omega3 essential fatty acids, which are mood stabilizers, anti-inflammatory and natural pain killers. Omega3s are found in WILD oily fish (salmon, herring, tuna, yellofin, mackerel ONLY if wild, the farmed version contains too much fat and too much saturated, that is, animal fats), game (deer, wild rabbit, quails, etc etc) and in some vegetables (garbanzo beans, flaxseed oil, green leafy veggies, etc).

In my case, I can absorb them a lot better than animal fats. Just to give you an idea, I can only eat 3% fats (in weight) if assorted fats, but I can digest without problem up to 12% omega3s (like fresh salmon - yes, sushi helps a lot).


Fourth big thing I discovered: some ways to cook food are more dangerous than others, and for specific reasons. For example, butter and margarine have LOADS of those nasty trans fats and, when heated (like in baking) they develop even more trans fats. Deep-frying also produces trans fats, unless one fries in oils that are very stable (coconut oil, palm oil, lard and pork fat). Problem is, these very oils are dangerous for other reasons (they raise cholesterol and raise the risk of strokes, heart attacks, etc etc). At any rate, do NOT fry in oils rich in omega3s (like flaxseed, canola, sunflower, safflower, etc), you could get diarrhea out of it.


Five big thing I discovered: I improve my diarrhea by supplementing my diet with 3 teaspoon of soy lecithin a day, because it helps with fat absorbption and it prevents unabsorbed fats from eliciting diarrhea. Also, benefiber (powder) can help. Do NOT take the pills, cause they too have mono and diglycerides.

If you still don't believe how pervasive trans fats are, read this WebMd article.