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September 26, 2005
The Third Key Principle For A Successful Heart Healthy Diet
Fat does not spike your blood sugar or insulin. Natural fats are a healthy part of a balanced diet. Get your fat from free-range or grass-fed animals, eggs, nuts and unprocessed vegetable oils. These are some of the healthiest foods you can eat, not health hazards.
The health benefit of natural fats comes from their balance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are a type of polyunsaturated fat that have a favorable effect on the heart. Studies show that Omega-3s prevent irregular heartbeat, reduce arterial plaque, decrease blood clotting, lower blood pressure, and minimize inflammation. Omega-6 fatty acids – found in many processed foods -- interfere with the functioning of Omega-3s.
As is often true in nature, balance is essential. Our bodies need both Omega-3s and Omega-6s, but we need them in the right ratios. For most of the time humans have been on Earth, we ate foods containing Omega-6’s and Omega-3’s in a ratio of about 2:1. However, over the last 75 years in North America, Omega-6’s in the diet have soared and now the ratio is 20:1. The average American eats ten times as much Omega-6 as is healthy. The main sources are vegetable oils, processed foods, and grain-fed meat.
That is where the health gurus of the 1980s made another big mistake. They mistook the heart disease culprit to be red meat because Western livestock has an unhealthy Omega-6: Omega-3 fatty acid ratio of 20:1. They never bothered to explain why native people who ate about 85 percent of their calories as wild red meat lacked modern heart disease.
If you measure Omega-6’s and Omega-3’s in wild range or grass-fed animals, you get a dramatically reversed and heart healthy ratio of 0.16 to 1. Stated another way, the culprit isn’t the fat natural to red meat; it’s the environment producing the changed fat in modern farmed red meat.
It turns out that nature has combined the best source of quality protein with the best source of heart healthy Omega-3 fats – at least when animals are permitted to eat their natural wild diet. If you eat organic meats and avoid processed foods you can restore a more healthful balance of fatty acids.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today
Posted by james at September 26, 2005 6:20 AM