Articles of Interest
A 50-Year Farm Bill
The New York Times
Op-Ed Contributors
A 50-Year Farm Bill
By WES JACKSON and WENDELL BERRY
Published: January 4, 2009
The extraordinary rainstorms last June caused catastrophic soil erosion in the grain lands of Iowa, where there were gullies 200 feet wide. But even worse damage is done over the long term under normal rainfall — by the little rills and sheets of erosion on incompletely covered or denuded cropland, and by various degradations resulting from industrial procedures and technologies alien to both agriculture and nature.
Soil that is used and abused in this way is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — and no powerful friends in the halls of government.
Agriculture has too often involved an insupportable abuse and waste of soil, ever since the first farmers took away the soil-saving cover and roots of perennial plants. Civilizations have destroyed themselves by destroying their farmland. This irremediable loss, never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice.
To the problem of soil loss, the industrialization of agriculture has added pollution by toxic chemicals, now universally present in our farmlands and streams. Some of this toxicity is associated with the widely acclaimed method of minimum tillage. We should not poison our soils to save them.
Industrial agricultural has made our food supply entirely dependent on fossil fuels and, by substituting technological “solutions” for human work and care, has virtually destroyed the cultures of husbandry (imperfect as they may have been) once indigenous to family farms and farming neighborhoods.
Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.
For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. That is a mistake. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy. The government will bring forth no food by providing hundreds of billons of dollars to the agribusiness corporations.
Any restorations will require, above all else, a substantial increase in the acreages of perennial plants. The most immediately practicable way of doing this is to go back to crop rotations that include hay, pasture and grazing animals.
But a more radical response is necessary if we are to keep eating and preserve our land at the same time. In fact, research in Canada, Australia, China and the United States over the last 30 years suggests that perennialization of the major grain crops like wheat, rice, sorghum and sunflowers can be developed in the foreseeable future. By increasing the use of mixtures of grain-bearing perennials, we can better protect the soil and substantially reduce greenhouse gases, fossil-fuel use and toxic pollution.
Carbon sequestration would increase, and the husbandry of water and soil nutrients would become much more efficient. And with an increase in the use of perennial plants and grazing animals would come more employment opportunities in agriculture — provided, of course, that farmers would be paid justly for their work and their goods.
Thoughtful farmers and consumers everywhere are already making many necessary changes in the production and marketing of food. But we also need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.
This is a political issue, certainly, but it far transcends the farm politics we are used to. It is an issue as close to every one of us as our own stomachs.
Wes Jackson is a plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer in Port Royal, Ky.
Op-Ed Contributors
A 50-Year Farm Bill
By WES JACKSON and WENDELL BERRY
Published: January 4, 2009
The extraordinary rainstorms last June caused catastrophic soil erosion in the grain lands of Iowa, where there were gullies 200 feet wide. But even worse damage is done over the long term under normal rainfall — by the little rills and sheets of erosion on incompletely covered or denuded cropland, and by various degradations resulting from industrial procedures and technologies alien to both agriculture and nature.
Soil that is used and abused in this way is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — and no powerful friends in the halls of government.
Agriculture has too often involved an insupportable abuse and waste of soil, ever since the first farmers took away the soil-saving cover and roots of perennial plants. Civilizations have destroyed themselves by destroying their farmland. This irremediable loss, never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice.
To the problem of soil loss, the industrialization of agriculture has added pollution by toxic chemicals, now universally present in our farmlands and streams. Some of this toxicity is associated with the widely acclaimed method of minimum tillage. We should not poison our soils to save them.
Industrial agricultural has made our food supply entirely dependent on fossil fuels and, by substituting technological “solutions” for human work and care, has virtually destroyed the cultures of husbandry (imperfect as they may have been) once indigenous to family farms and farming neighborhoods.
Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.
For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. That is a mistake. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy. The government will bring forth no food by providing hundreds of billons of dollars to the agribusiness corporations.
Any restorations will require, above all else, a substantial increase in the acreages of perennial plants. The most immediately practicable way of doing this is to go back to crop rotations that include hay, pasture and grazing animals.
But a more radical response is necessary if we are to keep eating and preserve our land at the same time. In fact, research in Canada, Australia, China and the United States over the last 30 years suggests that perennialization of the major grain crops like wheat, rice, sorghum and sunflowers can be developed in the foreseeable future. By increasing the use of mixtures of grain-bearing perennials, we can better protect the soil and substantially reduce greenhouse gases, fossil-fuel use and toxic pollution.
Carbon sequestration would increase, and the husbandry of water and soil nutrients would become much more efficient. And with an increase in the use of perennial plants and grazing animals would come more employment opportunities in agriculture — provided, of course, that farmers would be paid justly for their work and their goods.
Thoughtful farmers and consumers everywhere are already making many necessary changes in the production and marketing of food. But we also need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.
This is a political issue, certainly, but it far transcends the farm politics we are used to. It is an issue as close to every one of us as our own stomachs.
Wes Jackson is a plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer in Port Royal, Ky.
“THE SHANKBONE REDEMPTION - THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT SATURATED ANIMAL FATS! “
Warning: The author of this article believes that you and your children are probably not eating enough saturated animal fat and that he will, through this series of articles about GOOD FAT, try to convince you that you need to eat more of it! He will tempt you with the joys and health benefits of cooking your free-range eggs in pure lard, about eating all that yellow fat in the skin from your roasted pastured chicken, and even encourage you to reach for the 70% lean grass-fed ground beef instead of the comparatively tasteless ultra-lean ground beef. The author calls reduced-fat milk “junk food” and wants you to drink plenty of full-fat grass-fed pure milk and cream, then spread extra butter on your toast. The author even has the audacity to suggest that much of what you have been told about your blood tests are wrong, and will then prompt you to reinterpret these blood lipid profiles. If you, like half of America, are on statins already, he will try to find a better way to live than being on drugs. The author even says by eating more good fat you can lose excess weight, live longer, look better, think better, and, of course, have a whole lot more fun. To the “politically correct” ear this all sounds pretty dangerous. Read on only if you dare.
DANGEROUS MYTHS
So, now that you have been warned, let’s get right to work. First of all there are a few prevailing medical myths that we have to deconstruct. Analysis of the studies used to indict fat as bad have revealed the faulty reasoning and bad science that went into the wrong thinking. We now are stuck with the faulty “lipid hypothesis” which basically states that a diet high in saturated fats causes elevated blood cholesterol. Today, study after study shows that this is just not true. We now find that the healthiest people in the world use a cuisine based on eating good natural animal fats! These people have virtually no heart attacks nor build up of plaque in their arteries. In a nutshell, we find that when the US converted over to a hydrogenated vegetable oil cooking base, right after WWII, we then began the descent into what we have now, cardiovascular disease being the Number One Killer of American people. Entire cultures who eat a high saturated fat diet like the Masai, the cattle herders of Kenya, or the blubber-eating Innuits have extremely healthy blood lipid profiles. New studies from Sweden even show a negative association with butterfat and cardiovascular disease, in other words butter actually protects us from cardiovascular disease and even against heart attacks. Almost everything the average in-the-box doctor now believe to be true about fat was never true and, to ever get our health back, this thinking must now evolve.
Secondly, we now know that high cholesterol does not cause heart disease. This is especially true for women. In fact, women with cholesterol levels in the upper range, even as high as 1000 mg/dl, are healthier and will live longer. It’s low cholesterol that is dangerous and women with low levels have a death rate 5 times higher.
We must also explode the myth that eating high fat foods increases cholesterol levels. There is just plain no connection. Earlier studies were either conducted poorly or misconstrued. In fact, when fat in the diet is restricted, the “good cholesterol, HDL goes down. When a super high fat diet is consumed not only does the HDL level return to healthy levels but we also note there is no increase in the so-called “bad” cholesterol, LDL.
Lastly, we need to get beyond the erroneous notion that cholesterol causes plaque build-up in the arteries. These myths die hard because so many medical careers, so many medical practices and so many pharmaceutical companies depend on perpetuation of the bad science that led to this. The medical community doesn’t bat an eye at the big picture presented when all of America are taking statins at $4 a day, gobbling up tens of billions of dollars a year that we don’t have! How could a medical person even stomach the preposterous notion that an entire nation all of a sudden needs to be on a powerful drug? We also have the massively rich lobbies promoting the use of vegetable oils that stand to lose greatly if the truth ever comes out. In their defense, medical doctors do have a hard time selling “clean living” such as getting exercise, quitting smoking, losing weight and stress management. It’s not hard to understand why they almost prefer saying, “here, just take these pills….”.
THE REAL FACTS ABOUT SATURATED FATS
This powerful and quite healthful substance is only found in animal tissue and is made by the liver and most mammalian cells in the body, It is not a fat, but technically an alcohol. It is used in the human body for many things, not the least of which is as a “road patch” when arteries become damaged. Whether damaged from free radicals, smoking, viruses, too much dietary sugar, mineral or vitamin deficiencies, or even from not drinking enough water, the cholesterol steps in to coat the irritated and weak lining of the arteries which protects us from aneurism or stroke. The only truly dangerous dietary cholesterol is that which has gotten “oxidized” through such things as being highly heated as with frying or pasteurization or excessive exposure to oxygen. People with high blood levels of cholesterol usually have too many free radicals coming into their body, or they have a poorly functioning thyroid. The cholesterol comes to help but it is attacked and blamed for the problem that it has come to help cure! It’s like blaming the fire trucks for causing the fire that called them in! Cholesterol also gives shape and structure to every cell membrane.
~Most Extracted Oil- To acquire the oil in seeds and nuts some sort of pressure must be applied. In the old days it was removed using huge stones which caused it to slowly drip out. Modern industrial factories torture the seeds with massive heat and pressure, then they extract the last few drops using toxic solvents that are mixed with the crushed residue. Meanwhile uv light and oxygen ravage the integrity of the oil. Just about all of the antioxidants, essential fatty acids, vitamin E and other protectors are destroyed so cancer-causing BHT and BHA are sprayed into the brew to prevent a complete loss. Extra virgin olive oil is an exception to this process, it is still gently pressed although it must be stored in opaque containers at a cool temperature to maintain purity.
~Hydrogenated Fats- These fats, which began as liquid at room temperature, are usually manufactured from the cheapest oils, soy, corn, cottonseed or canola (already rancid from extraction). They are violently subjected to extreme heat and pressure, mixed with nickel particles, soaped, steamed and hydrogen gassed, then colored or dyed until they become the solid oils we know most commonly as margarine or shortening. These become carcinogenic and toxic substances that are never found in nature but which accumulate in the body.
~Trans Fats- These are the man-made partially-hydrogenated fats that have now become one of the most dangerous components of the Western diet. The body has zero need for them and they are health hazards at any level, there is no safe amount. Unfortunately, our body cannot recognize these fake fats and they get woven into the cell membranes of the body as if they were normal fats. They are never normal. The disease pathologies that result include cancer, hardening of the arteries, elevated blood cholesterol, immune paralysis, diabetes, obesity, birth defects, sterility, and bone and joint problems.
~Homogenized Fats- Once the natural and creamy fat is shot through tiny pores under great pressure it becomes dangerously oxidized and more prone to rancidity. These unnatural particles become attached to shattered milk casein particles becoming allergy makers. These fats are also thought to contribute to heart disease.
THE GOOD NEWS
OK, if you are still with me, what you have just read pretty much sums up the bad news about some fats. However, there is incredible good news about friendly fats, especially regarding the incredibly delicious and healing saturated fats that are quite plentiful, affordable and delicious! The “politically-correct diet dictocrats” as Sally Fallon calls them have smeared the reputation of most of these natural and traditional fats that used to keep us healthy and satisfied, but, it’s time to bring them back! We have run out of room on this page, so it will be what we will discuss next time as you get what the late Paul Harvey called “the rest of the story”.
COMING UP
Part 2-”We are healthy because we eat LARD!”
Part 3- “Cooking with beef fat (tallow) and other good animal fats”
Part 4- “Keeping farmers and ranchers alive, healthy, and off drugs- How to interpret your blood lipid profiles and what to do if they are off”
_________________________________________________________
William G. Winter, DVM is a free-lance journalist and teacher. He is primarily interested in awakening the world to the human health benefits and the environmental bonus that comes from raising 100% grass-fed livestock using sustainable practices and the magic of holistic herd health. He is also the herd health consultant for producers of livestock for Thousand Hills Cattle Company and lives in Minnesota where the grass grows green and lush, and all the producers children eat right and are therefore above average. Contact him with your concerns, grand concepts, and rave compliments at holistic@visi.com or www.willwinter.com.
DANGEROUS MYTHS
So, now that you have been warned, let’s get right to work. First of all there are a few prevailing medical myths that we have to deconstruct. Analysis of the studies used to indict fat as bad have revealed the faulty reasoning and bad science that went into the wrong thinking. We now are stuck with the faulty “lipid hypothesis” which basically states that a diet high in saturated fats causes elevated blood cholesterol. Today, study after study shows that this is just not true. We now find that the healthiest people in the world use a cuisine based on eating good natural animal fats! These people have virtually no heart attacks nor build up of plaque in their arteries. In a nutshell, we find that when the US converted over to a hydrogenated vegetable oil cooking base, right after WWII, we then began the descent into what we have now, cardiovascular disease being the Number One Killer of American people. Entire cultures who eat a high saturated fat diet like the Masai, the cattle herders of Kenya, or the blubber-eating Innuits have extremely healthy blood lipid profiles. New studies from Sweden even show a negative association with butterfat and cardiovascular disease, in other words butter actually protects us from cardiovascular disease and even against heart attacks. Almost everything the average in-the-box doctor now believe to be true about fat was never true and, to ever get our health back, this thinking must now evolve.
Secondly, we now know that high cholesterol does not cause heart disease. This is especially true for women. In fact, women with cholesterol levels in the upper range, even as high as 1000 mg/dl, are healthier and will live longer. It’s low cholesterol that is dangerous and women with low levels have a death rate 5 times higher.
We must also explode the myth that eating high fat foods increases cholesterol levels. There is just plain no connection. Earlier studies were either conducted poorly or misconstrued. In fact, when fat in the diet is restricted, the “good cholesterol, HDL goes down. When a super high fat diet is consumed not only does the HDL level return to healthy levels but we also note there is no increase in the so-called “bad” cholesterol, LDL.
Lastly, we need to get beyond the erroneous notion that cholesterol causes plaque build-up in the arteries. These myths die hard because so many medical careers, so many medical practices and so many pharmaceutical companies depend on perpetuation of the bad science that led to this. The medical community doesn’t bat an eye at the big picture presented when all of America are taking statins at $4 a day, gobbling up tens of billions of dollars a year that we don’t have! How could a medical person even stomach the preposterous notion that an entire nation all of a sudden needs to be on a powerful drug? We also have the massively rich lobbies promoting the use of vegetable oils that stand to lose greatly if the truth ever comes out. In their defense, medical doctors do have a hard time selling “clean living” such as getting exercise, quitting smoking, losing weight and stress management. It’s not hard to understand why they almost prefer saying, “here, just take these pills….”.
THE REAL FACTS ABOUT SATURATED FATS
- Saturated fatty acids make up over half of the cell membrane of every cell in the body.
- We need at least 50% of our dietary fats to be saturated otherwise we can’t get calcium into our bones
- They actually lower lipoprotein-1, a substance that is now known to be the best marker of risk to heart disease.
- They protect our liver from alcohol and other toxins such as Tylenol.
- They enhance our immune system.
- They enable us to utilize the essential fatty acids such as Omega-3 fat.
- These fats are the preferred food of the heart muscle itself, giving this vital organ reserves of energy during times of stress.
- Specific fats have important antimicrobial properties and protect us from harmful organisms in the digestive tract.
- When arteries are clogged it’s only 26% saturated fat, over half is polyunsaturated.
This powerful and quite healthful substance is only found in animal tissue and is made by the liver and most mammalian cells in the body, It is not a fat, but technically an alcohol. It is used in the human body for many things, not the least of which is as a “road patch” when arteries become damaged. Whether damaged from free radicals, smoking, viruses, too much dietary sugar, mineral or vitamin deficiencies, or even from not drinking enough water, the cholesterol steps in to coat the irritated and weak lining of the arteries which protects us from aneurism or stroke. The only truly dangerous dietary cholesterol is that which has gotten “oxidized” through such things as being highly heated as with frying or pasteurization or excessive exposure to oxygen. People with high blood levels of cholesterol usually have too many free radicals coming into their body, or they have a poorly functioning thyroid. The cholesterol comes to help but it is attacked and blamed for the problem that it has come to help cure! It’s like blaming the fire trucks for causing the fire that called them in! Cholesterol also gives shape and structure to every cell membrane.
- All of our hormones, such as sex hormones and stress hormones are made using cholesterol as the base.
- It is a precursor to all vitamin D, an essential fat-soluble vitamin critical for healthy bones, proper growth, mineral metabolism, reproduction, immune function and our brain.
- Bile salts, which help us digest food, especially fats is made from cholesterol.
- It is the #1 antioxidant in the body! Protecting us from free radicals and other agents of degeneration, cancer and aging.
- We need it for our serotonin receptors in the brain, the “feel good” neurotransmitter, when cholesterol levels are low there are aggressive, violent, and suicidal tendencies along with depression.
- Mother’s milk is rich in cholesterol, babies and children need it throughout their growing years to properly develop the brain and nervous system.
- It makes our gut healthy helping to prevent leaky gut syndrome, food sensitivities and other digestive ailments.
~Most Extracted Oil- To acquire the oil in seeds and nuts some sort of pressure must be applied. In the old days it was removed using huge stones which caused it to slowly drip out. Modern industrial factories torture the seeds with massive heat and pressure, then they extract the last few drops using toxic solvents that are mixed with the crushed residue. Meanwhile uv light and oxygen ravage the integrity of the oil. Just about all of the antioxidants, essential fatty acids, vitamin E and other protectors are destroyed so cancer-causing BHT and BHA are sprayed into the brew to prevent a complete loss. Extra virgin olive oil is an exception to this process, it is still gently pressed although it must be stored in opaque containers at a cool temperature to maintain purity.
~Hydrogenated Fats- These fats, which began as liquid at room temperature, are usually manufactured from the cheapest oils, soy, corn, cottonseed or canola (already rancid from extraction). They are violently subjected to extreme heat and pressure, mixed with nickel particles, soaped, steamed and hydrogen gassed, then colored or dyed until they become the solid oils we know most commonly as margarine or shortening. These become carcinogenic and toxic substances that are never found in nature but which accumulate in the body.
~Trans Fats- These are the man-made partially-hydrogenated fats that have now become one of the most dangerous components of the Western diet. The body has zero need for them and they are health hazards at any level, there is no safe amount. Unfortunately, our body cannot recognize these fake fats and they get woven into the cell membranes of the body as if they were normal fats. They are never normal. The disease pathologies that result include cancer, hardening of the arteries, elevated blood cholesterol, immune paralysis, diabetes, obesity, birth defects, sterility, and bone and joint problems.
~Homogenized Fats- Once the natural and creamy fat is shot through tiny pores under great pressure it becomes dangerously oxidized and more prone to rancidity. These unnatural particles become attached to shattered milk casein particles becoming allergy makers. These fats are also thought to contribute to heart disease.
THE GOOD NEWS
OK, if you are still with me, what you have just read pretty much sums up the bad news about some fats. However, there is incredible good news about friendly fats, especially regarding the incredibly delicious and healing saturated fats that are quite plentiful, affordable and delicious! The “politically-correct diet dictocrats” as Sally Fallon calls them have smeared the reputation of most of these natural and traditional fats that used to keep us healthy and satisfied, but, it’s time to bring them back! We have run out of room on this page, so it will be what we will discuss next time as you get what the late Paul Harvey called “the rest of the story”.
COMING UP
Part 2-”We are healthy because we eat LARD!”
Part 3- “Cooking with beef fat (tallow) and other good animal fats”
Part 4- “Keeping farmers and ranchers alive, healthy, and off drugs- How to interpret your blood lipid profiles and what to do if they are off”
_________________________________________________________
William G. Winter, DVM is a free-lance journalist and teacher. He is primarily interested in awakening the world to the human health benefits and the environmental bonus that comes from raising 100% grass-fed livestock using sustainable practices and the magic of holistic herd health. He is also the herd health consultant for producers of livestock for Thousand Hills Cattle Company and lives in Minnesota where the grass grows green and lush, and all the producers children eat right and are therefore above average. Contact him with your concerns, grand concepts, and rave compliments at holistic@visi.com or www.willwinter.com.
“WE ARE HEALTHY BECAUSE WE EAT LARD!”
This is Part 2 of a series about fat from an author who believes that you and your children are probably not eating enough saturated animal fat and that he will try to convince you that you need to eat more good fat! He will tempt you with the joys and health benefits of cooking your free-range eggs in pure lard, about eating all that yellow fat in the skin from your roasted pastured chicken, and even encourage you to reach for the 70% lean grass-fed ground beef instead of the comparatively tasteless ultra-lean ground beef. The author calls reduced-fat milk “junk food” and wants you to drink plenty of full-fat grass-fed pure milk and cream, then spread extra butter on your toast. The author even has the audacity to suggest that much of what you have been told about your blood tests are wrong, and will then prompt you to reinterpret these blood lipid profiles. If you, like half of America, are on statins already, he will try to find a better way to live than being on drugs. The author even says by eating more good fat you can lose excess weight, live longer, look better, think better, and, of course, have a whole lot more fun. To the “politically correct” ear this all sounds pretty dangerous. Read on only if you dare.
REAL LARD is rendered pork fat (it is called tallow if it comes from a ruminant such as beef cattle). RENDERING is gently heating the fat to separate out the protein strands, the “cracklings”. Interestingly, the cracklings can be a good health food assuming the hogs are pastured, and the rendering natural. Pure lard is a beautiful, white, naturally-hydrogenated (and therefore healthful), solid fat. Most of its carbon sites are filled with hydrogens in their natural and normal cis position just as it comes from the hog. Good lard is only 40% SATURATED fat, with 48% MONOUNSATURATED and 12% POLYUNSATURATED fat.
Lard is stable and the preferred fat for frying, it does not easily turn into trans fats when heated. Potatoes, for example, fried in lard can be cooked in a shorter time at a higher temperature resulting in a better taste and texture as well as less rancidity and embedded oil. Lard is a HEALTH FOOD that needs to be returned to it’s rightful place in the American diet.
There are two kinds of fatty acids that our body cannot make and are therefore called ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS, they are both polyunsaturated 18 carbon molecules. OMEGA 6 is double unsaturated LINOLEIC acid and OMEGA 3 is the triple unsaturated LINOLENIC acid. the Omega number refers to the location of the first double bond. Like the other polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) they are very unstable, go rancid easily and should never be heated. Special and incredibly healthful EFA Omega 3 fats include CONJUGATED LINOLEIC ACID (CLA) which is found in grass-fed animals especially ruminants, DHA (the brain fat) and EPA which are found primarily in deep ocean fish, and GLA found in some plant oils.
Organically-raised, foraging and outdoor range hogs have the healthiest lard. Conventionally-raised pork get virtually no exercise, live indoors and eat no greens. Much of their diet is of the lowest possible quality. This lard is of equally low quality. The diet and lifestyle of the hog radically affects the quality of the lard! Confinement pork lard has similar OMEGA 6:3 ratios to feedlot beef, a 100 gm serving has about 8 grams of O-6 and 0.8 grams of O-3. A much more healthful ratio of O-6:O-3 can be achieved by increasing the amount of fresh green forages. The O-3 content can be greatly enhanced by feeding flax seed, sea greens, green algae or fish oils. On the other hand, hogs that eat garbage, especially bakery waste will incorporate toxic trans fats, heavy metals or other toxins in the fat. Never consider lard from feedlot “garbage” hogs a health food! At the other end of the spectrum, free-living warthogs have a ratio approaching 1:1!
The health of Americans plummeted when the “politically correct” diet advice recommended vegetable oils for cooking, especially partially-hydrogenated oils. Shortening, for example, is a liquid oil until manufacturers heat it up under pressure, bubble hydrogen gas into it (with a catalyst to make it all work faster) and force-feed the C double bonds hydrogen atoms that often latch on in a crossways or trans configuration. (“cis” means “same side whereas “trans” means on the opposite side). A little bit of hydrogen added in the trans configuration increases shelf life of the oil and allows liquid vegetable oils and corn oil not to go rancid in large, clear containers exposed to light and heat on the store shelves A lot of hydrogen added in the trans configuration solidifies the liquid oil, creating stick margarine or solid vegetable shortening, such as Crisco. Polyunsaturated oils go rancid easily due their unstable double bonds.
Fats are made of FATTY ACIDS which are the carbon-hydrogen chains (C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C) that latch on in groups of three to a glycerol backbone to make a TRIGLYCERIDE molecule, which are the basic molecules of which all fats are made. The length of the carbon chains and where, if any, double bonds (ie, missing hydrogen molecules) occur differentiate the fatty acids one from another. The more double bonds, the more unsaturated. One double bond gives you a monounsaturate, many double bonds gives you a polyunsaturate, no double bonds gives you a saturated fatty acid. The main saturated fatty acids (from shortest to longest chains): CAPRIC, LAURIC, MYRISTIC, PALMITIC, and STEARIC acids. The main monounsaturate is OLEIC acid.
Olive oil contains 71% OLEIC acid, that heart-healthy, monounsaturated fat that we’re supposed to get more of. Lard contains 44% oleic acid, sesame oil (41%),corn oil (28%), walnut oil (28%), flaxseed oil (21%), cottonseed oil (19%) and sunflower oil (19%), grapeseed oil (15%) and safflower oil (13%), beef tallow (43%), butterfat (29%), and human butterfat (ie the fat of breast milk at 35%).
Lard (14%) of the 18-C saturated fat, STEARIC acid, which has been shown in clinical testing to lower cholesterol.
Like olive oil, lard contains 10% of the omega-6 fatty acid LINOLEIC acid, again, roughly the same as human butterfat (breast milk) at 9%.
Lard contains 2% MYRISTIC acid, a 14-C saturated fat that has been shown to have important immune enhancing properties. Human butterfat 8% myristic acid, cottonseed oil (1%) and the tropical oils, coconut oil (18%) and and palm kernal oil (16%) vegetable oils have zero.
Lard contains 26% PALMITIC acid, a 16-C saturated fatty acid, olive oil only 13%, human butterfat contains 25%. Palmitic acid is antimicrobial.
Lard’s basic fatty acid composition as compared to the butterfat of human breast milk. Lard is less saturated, and more monounsaturates:
Saturated Monounsaturated Polyunsaturated
Breast Milk 48% 35% 10%
Lard 42% 44% 10%
WE NEED SATURATED FAT- It makes up over half of all cell membranes and give cells stiffness and integrity. Bones require about 50% of the dietary fat to be saturated so calcium can be absorbed. SF lowers Lipoprotein-a in the blood, an inflammatory marker directly associated with risk of heart disease. SF protects the liver from alcohol, toxins and drugs and the enhance the immune system. Omega 3 fats are retained in the tissue when the diet is rich in SF. Heart muscle contains rich deposits of stearic and palmitic fatty acids as they are the foods the heart muscle uses and which are drawn upon in times of stress. Many SF have antimicrobial properties and protect us from harmful pathogens in the intestine. There is no scientific evidence to back up claims that SF causes “artery clogging” in fact arterial plaque is only 26% SF the rest unsaturated fat, over half of the plaque is polyunsaturated fat!
TRANS FATS- Are one of the most dangerous foods in the world. They serve no purpose in the body except to cause inflammation, cancer and degenerative disease. TF began to enter the diet of Americans around 1910. Not too many years later we began to see the heart attack “epidemic” begin. Now, most Americans consume up to or more than 20% of their fat intake as trans fats. French fries cooked in vegetable oils (as they all are nowadays) have about 40% TF, cookies and crackers range from 35-50%,and doughnuts are 35-40% TF. If mothers eat TF it will cross the placenta and every cell in the baby will contain TF, even the brain. Every cell membrane is a layer of fat with a thin protein coating on both sides. If TF gets built into the membrane it is defective and won’t resist viral or other infection and it becomes cancer prone (seen most often in the current skin cancer “epidemic”). TF cause problems in the brain as DHA or other brain fats cannot be made from it, and the stiff and straight abnormal molecule creates overly rigid membranes. By eating a good balance of SATURATED FATS, POLYUNSATURATES and AVOIDING TF, it is thought that we can prevent MS, ALS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease as well as depression, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses.
COMING UP
Part 3- “Cooking with beef fat (tallow) and other good animal fats”
Part 4- “Keeping farmers and ranchers alive, healthy, and off drugs- How to interpret your blood lipid profiles and what to do if they are off”
_________________________________________________________
William G. Winter, DVM is a free-lance journalist and teacher. He is primarily interested in awakening the world to the human health benefits and the environmental bonus that comes from raising 100% grass-fed livestock using sustainable practices and the magic of holistic herd health. He is also the herd health consultant for producers of livestock for Thousand Hills Cattle Company and lives in Minnesota where the grass grows green and lush, and all the producers children eat right and are therefore above average. Contact him with your concerns, grand concepts, and rave compliments at holistic@visi.com or www.willwinter.com.
REAL LARD is rendered pork fat (it is called tallow if it comes from a ruminant such as beef cattle). RENDERING is gently heating the fat to separate out the protein strands, the “cracklings”. Interestingly, the cracklings can be a good health food assuming the hogs are pastured, and the rendering natural. Pure lard is a beautiful, white, naturally-hydrogenated (and therefore healthful), solid fat. Most of its carbon sites are filled with hydrogens in their natural and normal cis position just as it comes from the hog. Good lard is only 40% SATURATED fat, with 48% MONOUNSATURATED and 12% POLYUNSATURATED fat.
Lard is stable and the preferred fat for frying, it does not easily turn into trans fats when heated. Potatoes, for example, fried in lard can be cooked in a shorter time at a higher temperature resulting in a better taste and texture as well as less rancidity and embedded oil. Lard is a HEALTH FOOD that needs to be returned to it’s rightful place in the American diet.
There are two kinds of fatty acids that our body cannot make and are therefore called ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS, they are both polyunsaturated 18 carbon molecules. OMEGA 6 is double unsaturated LINOLEIC acid and OMEGA 3 is the triple unsaturated LINOLENIC acid. the Omega number refers to the location of the first double bond. Like the other polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) they are very unstable, go rancid easily and should never be heated. Special and incredibly healthful EFA Omega 3 fats include CONJUGATED LINOLEIC ACID (CLA) which is found in grass-fed animals especially ruminants, DHA (the brain fat) and EPA which are found primarily in deep ocean fish, and GLA found in some plant oils.
Organically-raised, foraging and outdoor range hogs have the healthiest lard. Conventionally-raised pork get virtually no exercise, live indoors and eat no greens. Much of their diet is of the lowest possible quality. This lard is of equally low quality. The diet and lifestyle of the hog radically affects the quality of the lard! Confinement pork lard has similar OMEGA 6:3 ratios to feedlot beef, a 100 gm serving has about 8 grams of O-6 and 0.8 grams of O-3. A much more healthful ratio of O-6:O-3 can be achieved by increasing the amount of fresh green forages. The O-3 content can be greatly enhanced by feeding flax seed, sea greens, green algae or fish oils. On the other hand, hogs that eat garbage, especially bakery waste will incorporate toxic trans fats, heavy metals or other toxins in the fat. Never consider lard from feedlot “garbage” hogs a health food! At the other end of the spectrum, free-living warthogs have a ratio approaching 1:1!
The health of Americans plummeted when the “politically correct” diet advice recommended vegetable oils for cooking, especially partially-hydrogenated oils. Shortening, for example, is a liquid oil until manufacturers heat it up under pressure, bubble hydrogen gas into it (with a catalyst to make it all work faster) and force-feed the C double bonds hydrogen atoms that often latch on in a crossways or trans configuration. (“cis” means “same side whereas “trans” means on the opposite side). A little bit of hydrogen added in the trans configuration increases shelf life of the oil and allows liquid vegetable oils and corn oil not to go rancid in large, clear containers exposed to light and heat on the store shelves A lot of hydrogen added in the trans configuration solidifies the liquid oil, creating stick margarine or solid vegetable shortening, such as Crisco. Polyunsaturated oils go rancid easily due their unstable double bonds.
Fats are made of FATTY ACIDS which are the carbon-hydrogen chains (C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C) that latch on in groups of three to a glycerol backbone to make a TRIGLYCERIDE molecule, which are the basic molecules of which all fats are made. The length of the carbon chains and where, if any, double bonds (ie, missing hydrogen molecules) occur differentiate the fatty acids one from another. The more double bonds, the more unsaturated. One double bond gives you a monounsaturate, many double bonds gives you a polyunsaturate, no double bonds gives you a saturated fatty acid. The main saturated fatty acids (from shortest to longest chains): CAPRIC, LAURIC, MYRISTIC, PALMITIC, and STEARIC acids. The main monounsaturate is OLEIC acid.
Olive oil contains 71% OLEIC acid, that heart-healthy, monounsaturated fat that we’re supposed to get more of. Lard contains 44% oleic acid, sesame oil (41%),corn oil (28%), walnut oil (28%), flaxseed oil (21%), cottonseed oil (19%) and sunflower oil (19%), grapeseed oil (15%) and safflower oil (13%), beef tallow (43%), butterfat (29%), and human butterfat (ie the fat of breast milk at 35%).
Lard (14%) of the 18-C saturated fat, STEARIC acid, which has been shown in clinical testing to lower cholesterol.
Like olive oil, lard contains 10% of the omega-6 fatty acid LINOLEIC acid, again, roughly the same as human butterfat (breast milk) at 9%.
Lard contains 2% MYRISTIC acid, a 14-C saturated fat that has been shown to have important immune enhancing properties. Human butterfat 8% myristic acid, cottonseed oil (1%) and the tropical oils, coconut oil (18%) and and palm kernal oil (16%) vegetable oils have zero.
Lard contains 26% PALMITIC acid, a 16-C saturated fatty acid, olive oil only 13%, human butterfat contains 25%. Palmitic acid is antimicrobial.
Lard’s basic fatty acid composition as compared to the butterfat of human breast milk. Lard is less saturated, and more monounsaturates:
Saturated Monounsaturated Polyunsaturated
Breast Milk 48% 35% 10%
Lard 42% 44% 10%
WE NEED SATURATED FAT- It makes up over half of all cell membranes and give cells stiffness and integrity. Bones require about 50% of the dietary fat to be saturated so calcium can be absorbed. SF lowers Lipoprotein-a in the blood, an inflammatory marker directly associated with risk of heart disease. SF protects the liver from alcohol, toxins and drugs and the enhance the immune system. Omega 3 fats are retained in the tissue when the diet is rich in SF. Heart muscle contains rich deposits of stearic and palmitic fatty acids as they are the foods the heart muscle uses and which are drawn upon in times of stress. Many SF have antimicrobial properties and protect us from harmful pathogens in the intestine. There is no scientific evidence to back up claims that SF causes “artery clogging” in fact arterial plaque is only 26% SF the rest unsaturated fat, over half of the plaque is polyunsaturated fat!
TRANS FATS- Are one of the most dangerous foods in the world. They serve no purpose in the body except to cause inflammation, cancer and degenerative disease. TF began to enter the diet of Americans around 1910. Not too many years later we began to see the heart attack “epidemic” begin. Now, most Americans consume up to or more than 20% of their fat intake as trans fats. French fries cooked in vegetable oils (as they all are nowadays) have about 40% TF, cookies and crackers range from 35-50%,and doughnuts are 35-40% TF. If mothers eat TF it will cross the placenta and every cell in the baby will contain TF, even the brain. Every cell membrane is a layer of fat with a thin protein coating on both sides. If TF gets built into the membrane it is defective and won’t resist viral or other infection and it becomes cancer prone (seen most often in the current skin cancer “epidemic”). TF cause problems in the brain as DHA or other brain fats cannot be made from it, and the stiff and straight abnormal molecule creates overly rigid membranes. By eating a good balance of SATURATED FATS, POLYUNSATURATES and AVOIDING TF, it is thought that we can prevent MS, ALS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease as well as depression, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses.
COMING UP
Part 3- “Cooking with beef fat (tallow) and other good animal fats”
Part 4- “Keeping farmers and ranchers alive, healthy, and off drugs- How to interpret your blood lipid profiles and what to do if they are off”
_________________________________________________________
William G. Winter, DVM is a free-lance journalist and teacher. He is primarily interested in awakening the world to the human health benefits and the environmental bonus that comes from raising 100% grass-fed livestock using sustainable practices and the magic of holistic herd health. He is also the herd health consultant for producers of livestock for Thousand Hills Cattle Company and lives in Minnesota where the grass grows green and lush, and all the producers children eat right and are therefore above average. Contact him with your concerns, grand concepts, and rave compliments at holistic@visi.com or www.willwinter.com.
