Cooking oils and Fatty Acid Oils and Nut Oils.

First, Vegetable Oils including Soy and Corn Oil are BAD.

Canola oil is like plastic so that needs to be discarded as well.

Olive oil? It is great! But not at high temperatures due to it’s low flash point (meaning it will oxidize when heated). So use Olive oil for dipping and salad dressings only.

So what should I cook with?

Organic Butter is great! Tons of healthy fats and some protein as well. Use as much as you want.

Coconut oil is probably the best cooking oil–it is a saturated fat, but don’t let that scare you.  As a medicum chain fat, it is energy that gets USED and NOT STORED. Coconut oil has been shown to help maintain healthy cholesterol levels, reduce the risk of heart disease and help with burning fat! Yes, eat coconut oil (3 tsps per day) and you will burn fat.  Coconut oil is one of the healthiest foods available.  Use it as a skin moisturizer as well. Buy organic coconut oil, of course.

Grapeseed oil and Walnut oil are great oils to cook with.  They don’t have much flavor (especially the Grapeseed Oil) and have high flashpoints (they will not oxidize when heated).  These are much better choices than the Canola oil most people choose.

Fish Oil is needed for it’s high EPA and DHA content (Omega 3 Fatty Acids).  We get too much Omega 6 Fatty Acids from our diets and so we need Omega 3 Fatty Acids to help bring balance back to our systems. Everyone benefits from supplementing with Fish Oil. Everyone. Make sure you spend a little more money on an Ultra-Pure Fish Oil to ensure you are not getting fish oil that is rancid or containing heavy metal or other contaminants.

Flaxseed Oil is a good plant based Omega 3 Fatty Acid for those not wanting any fish oil. Be careful as using too much Flax does interfere with Thyroid function.

Evening Primrose Oil is also a great way to get healthy Omega 6 and Omega 9 Fatty Acids. Evening Primrose is particularly helpful for any cyst stuff (breast cysts, thyroid cysts, etc) as well as helping with menopausal hot flashes.

There are a lot of oils out there and I think most people are not using enough of the good ones and too much of the bad ones. Understanding this alone can dramatically impact your health.

This is a common question.  Others include: does it matter if it is a capsule or liquid or tablet? Does it matter what brand it is? Does it matter if there is 100% RDA vs 5000%? And what do those percentages actually mean? How do I know if the supplement is being absorbed properly? How do I know if the supplement is working for me?

Let’s start with the basics.

RULE#1: Choose a nutritional supplement from a reputable company.

You want to feel good about the supplements you are taking and you want to trust that the ingredients listed actually are the ingredients in the supplement.  By choosing a well known, reputable supplement brand, you will be able to put those questions to rest (hopefully). It is obviously impossible to test the ingredients of all the supplements out there, but if you choose well known brands such as Whole Foods Brand or Earth Fare Brand or Carlson’s or Thorne or Udo’s or the Organic Performance Lab brand, then you can know that your supplements are full of 100% the ingredients listed and nothing more or less. I know for a fact that all of the supplements I sell are tested and 100% pure–they are the absolute highest quality supplement you can purchase–my brand is the only brand I personally take.

RULE #2: When in doubt, start with a Multivitamin and Fish Oil.

Everyone, including children, benefit from a comprehensive multivitamin and fish oil.  There are no downsides here.  Yes, there are literally thousands of different natural nutritional supplements you can choose from, so start slowly and simply. A multivitamin fills the gap for all that you are not getting from food and fish oil is so powerfully anti-inflammatory that every cell in your body benefits.

RULE #3: Forget about RDA

RDA or Recommended Daily Allowance tells how much of a vitamin or nutrient is needed to prevent disease. We don’t really care about this. We are shooting for optimal health and well-being so we want large doses of vitamins and minerals.  For the water soluble vitamins such as Vitamin B and Vitamin C, there is no upper limit–you can take as much as you want.  For the fat-soluble vitamins (A,D,E,K) you don’t have to watch (somewhat) how much you take in.  However, for Vitamin D, we know that most people are severely Vitamin D deficient, so chances are you are not going to take too much. Compare a comprehensive multivitamin ingredients with a Centrum multivitamin to see what I am referring to.

RULE #4: At first, don’t worry about formulation (liquid vs. capsule vs. tablet)

The reason I say this is that we don’t really know how you are going to absorb what you are taking unless we test.  So start with one that seems to be a good fit for you. If you are taking that particular one for a little while and notice that you feel worse, then it is time to switch or test and see what your vitamin/ fatty acid status is.  Certainly don’t switch because you don’t necessarily feel better–I don’t think most people feel much better from adding a multivitamin and fish oil–the benefits are there and certainly accumulate so that if you supplement well, you are setting yourself up for a healthier aging process. There are times when we need to switch formulations (poor absorption is the number one reason) but that generally takes time to figure out. If you are concerned at all, go with the liquid formulation up front as it is the best absorbed.

RULE #5: Pay extra for high quality ultra-pure Fish Oil

You don’t want your Fish Oil to contain any mercury or other metals and you don’t want your Fish Oil to be impure and taste fishy. So pay extra for high quality fish oil that is tested to ensure purity.  Fish Oil is such a crucial part of a supplement program that it is the foundation for which the entire supplement foundation rests upon, so make sure you choose this one wisely.

Those are five basic tenets to get you started.  I will go into more detail about other categories of supplements including Adaptogens, Essential Phospholipids, Botanicals, and Amino Acids to name a few.  I will also go over why I think lab testing is critical to formulating a balanced and optimal supplement program.,

I thought of this last night.

Here is an easy way to remember what is best for your GI tract to help you digest, absorb, and utilize your food best:

• Five-HTP: did you know that more than 90% of your serotonin lives in the nerve cells of your colon? 5HTP is the immediate precursor of serotonin, so taking 5HTP helps ensure that your colon will work more efficiently. We certainly think of serotonin as the “feel  good” neurotransmitter of the brain, but the actual effects of serotonin may be more pronounced in the GI tract. So this raises the interesting point–when we boost our serotonin levels, we are actually boosting how well our GI tract is functioning…and yet, we feel better!
• Fiber: fiber may be the actual key component to directing liver function as a whole, from regulating how we manage both insulin and sugar, to acting like a sponge to bad toxins, cholesterol, etc.  There are two forms: soluble and insoluble–both are important–but I feel the soluble fiber is the one to focus on…
• Fat: this is certainly the most misunderstood of all the nutrients we eat. Healthy fat is critical to maintaining cell membrane function and ensuring proper intestinal lining viability.  Most of us get too much unhealthy fat in things like vegetable oils, trans-fats, etc. and don’t eat enough of the good fats: whole milk, whole fat yogurt, coconut oil, cottage cheese, fatty fish
• Fish Oil: this is the best supply of Omega 3 Fatty Acids. Certainly a type of healthy fat, but gets it’s own mention, Fish Oil, is the one staple we need for overall optimal health and that starts with optimal digestive function. Fish Oil helps reduce the inflammatory burden that is created when we eat foods we should not be eating, helps promote fat loss from our fat cells, and helps improve liver efficiency. All put together, Fish Oil is powerfully important in all aspects of digestive function.

There have been two documented ways to extend life: caloric restriction and fish oil consumption.

Caloric restriction is hard to understand, but I think “works” by applying a low grade stress on the body system as a whole. This stress allows for up-regulation of certain enzymes and DNA mechanisms that seem to keep our DNA in better shape.  Basically this is equivalent of the saying, “What doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger.” Too much caloric restriction (stress) and this tips the balance too far.  While the science supports this claim, it is difficult for me to advocate this principle.  I do think we need to learn how to eat better so that we get more nutrition from our food, so I certainly don’t advocate caloric restriction.  But I understand what it signifies.  The good news is that there is a way to stimulate these same DNA mechanisms WITHOUT having to restrict calories.  From a physiological perspective, it seems that we can indeed extend life by doing other things then restricting calories.  I will let you know more about this at a later time, but for now, when you read about caloric restriction, know that the science seems to prove this true.

Fish Oil consumption is easier to understand.  Fish Oil provides a supply of Omega 3 Fatty Acids which is the equivalent to healthy fat.  And we NEED fat. Healthy fat.  Omega 3 Fatty Acids found in fish oil are very anti-inflammatory helping with blood pressure, cognition, cholesterol, brain function, muscle function, and countless other processes.

I think the real question is not so much can we extend longevity, but do we want to?  That is my question to you today: if you could take something, a supplement if you will, to extend your life, would you?  Ponder this for a little while and I will get back to you about what the science tell us about how we can extend our lives….