Here at Chiot’s Run we try to incorporate a lot of healthy fats into our diets. We don not eat any soy, canola, corn, or other types of vegetable oils. We do eat coconut oil, red palm oil, olive oil from a small farm in California, bacon grease, beef tallow, and lots of local pastured butter. Since we’re kicking off the Real Food Challenge, I figured I’d feature some Real Oils in our Sunday Photo Post today. You can make a few simple changes by swapping out processed oils for more natural ones. The biggest change you can make is simply switching from margarine to real butter, pastured is the best if you can find it locally. You’ll know it’s pastured by the deep yellow color. Read up on the great benefit of Real Butter here.
Pastured butter and ghee is our biggest source of fat. We make some of our own butter (here’s a how-to if you’re interested), and source some from a small local dairy. I also make my own ghee, I have directions on my blog.
Finding ways to incorporate coconut oil into your diet is also a good move. Read this post on my blog about the health benefits and the different types of coconut oils.
Olive oil is also healthy, we get our organic cold pressed olive oil from Chaffin Family Orchard, a small farm in California. I order 2 gallons every January and rebottle it into glass bottles when it arrives.
Of course I always save the bacon grease when I make bacon and use it for all sorts of things, from frying onions and potatoes, to flavoring beans. I never let a drop go to waste. Incorporating animal fat is also great for your health, read up on healthy fats over at the Weston A. Price Foundation.
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Down here at Unearthing This Life, we’ve “reverted” to real fats as well. The largest part of fat in our diet probably comes from milk fats. We love our butter here! We’re fortunate enough to have access to milk that is not ultra-pasteurized so it still has some of the goodness that raw milk has. Also, we only drink whole milk. Ours is not homogenized, which means the beautiful cream rises to the top. A dollop of that cream on top of some hot chocolate… YUM! Between making our butter and several other cultured dairy products like clotted cream (recipe) and we get our daily allowance of all things milky.
Like Susy, we also use a lot of animal fats. We reserve bacon drippings, beef tallow, and duck fats. When we harvested the pig in fall we fully intended to make lard, but we had a cooking accident and burned the fat. I think both families almost cried over the loss. Seriously, he makes a fabulous confit, I’m sure he did cry.
Another big deal for us is that all of my fats are organic and that I purchase minimally processed when possible, and depending on the need. I refuse to purchase canola oil simply because it is highly contaminated by GMO’s. Organic animal fats (from dairy to lard) ensure that the animal has not been given growth hormones or antibiotics. If you look for minimally processed oils that are unrefined, remember that they are going to have more of the flavor of the food that it comes from. Peanut oil will smell and tastes like peanuts, coconut oil like coconuts. Refined oil will have a more neutral flavor but it will be more processed.
So while I know some of you are cringing over the thought of adding fat to your diets – I want to reassure you that fat is needed by your body to survive. It’s food for your brain. Some fats, like those that come from walnuts and olives have been shown to add elasticity to your arteries allowing better blood flow. No one is suggesting that you begin consuming large amounts of fat, however it is worth the research to find out what fats can do to help your body.
What’s the biggest source of fat in your diet?
I started using butter instead of margarine (which I was raised on) about 4 years ago. Switched to olive oli then too. I also just started using coconut oil in the past 6 months after reading about it on other blogs. I’d honestly never heard of using it before (and I’m 50!) I have a question about saving bacon grease…do you refrigerate it or only use it immediately?
I usually just leave it in a small bowl on the counter, and usually use it all within a month or so. If I fry up tons of bacon and have more than I’ll use in a month I’ll put it in the fridge. You can keep it in the fridge if you’re worried about it, it’s just a little harder to get out of the jar.
Many of us in the south keep a jar full of bacon fat on the stove or in the cabinet. I’ve never refrigerated mine and only replace it if it starts to pick up a stale odor. My jar is probably three years old and has been added to and taken from hundreds of time without being replaced. Fats like lard were used as a preservative and can last quite a while. As Susy says, if you’re concerned you can keep it in your refrigerator.
We use mainly olive oil and butter. I prefer to saute in broth as I find it more flavourful and it keeps the moisture in the food. The other fat we use is Hellman’s mayonnaise. I may try to make my own on the RFC but since I don’t have a food processor I’m not sure how feasible that will be. If not, I will try to use mashed avocado instead of mayo for my sandwiches at least.
My 2 main sources are butter and canola oil. What is your problem with canola oil? I always thought it was one of the healthier ones.
I love bacon grease as well, and always save it when I cook bacon. My favorite way to use it is to make it into biscuits. Just substitute it for the lard/shortening. This is especially good with cheddar biscuits.
Canola is highly susceptible to cross-pollination from other plants and have been found in high numbers to be contaminated with GMO genes, even though they weren’t sold or sown as GMO products.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola
I don’t use canola because personally I think the hype about how healthy it is was propagated by Monsanto after they developed their GMO canola. If you look at the “health news” trends, something often becomes “super healthy” after they’ve developed a GMO version and stand to make tons of money from it: soy, canola, flax… Then you never hear the negatives, once people start finding them because they’re swept under the rug.
Vegetable oils are also very difficult to keep from going rancid, I’ve read that often by the time you get them they are already slightly so. Fats like butter, coconut oil, olive oil and animals fats are more stable and less like to go rancid. Rancid oils are very unhealthy as is oil that has started smoking in the pan. If you put oil in the pan and forget about it and it starts to smoke, wash out the pan and start over. If you’re frying use oil that has a higher smoking point like coconut, palm or tallow/lard.
Personally I don’t use any oils/fats that weren’t used 500 years ago. I am very leery of newer fats/oils and their supposed benefits – after all margarine is heralded as “super healthy and much better than butter”.
Thanks for elaborating, Susy. You are dead-on about information being swept under the rug. That’s just one more reason to avoid all GMO products, and probably the best reason to purchase organic. You know what you’re getting.
Butter is by far my favorite fat. I use both cow and goat butter. I will never give it up. I wish I could remember the author, but I remember reading the quote, “I trust cows more than chemists.” So true.
Goat butter sounds great. I’m still holding out to get goats one of these days and aside from cheese, goat butter is definitely on my list!
I also get a lot of my fat from almonds. I eat a handful of raw almonds at least 5 days a week.
Here’s an informative article by Fallon and Enig about the effects of canola and it’s role in heart disease. “Con – ola”
http://elderlynursing.com/canola_oil.htm
I use butter, tallow and lard from our animals and occasionally buy coconut and olive oil. Great post!
We use butter, organic .. cold pressed olive oil .. lard, cold pressed organic coconut oil, and for high temp cooking, I use cold pressed organic sunflower oil. When making mayo, I use a combo of the olive oil and sunflower oils.
I use mainly butter and olive oil. When I cook bacon I save that and use it (doesn’t last me long, though). I do use canola when I’m cooking under really high heat (wok), but don’t use it otherwise. I also use sesame oil, though that’s strictly for flavouring.
Switched back to butter over 10 years ago. Just kind of realized that my human body didn’t know what margarine was or what to do with it. So back to butter back then. Wonder why it took me so long to figure the rest of it out. oh well. on to better now. I am also not as concerned with fat content anymore, realizing that real fat is good fat. I started using coconut oil a lot more after readings Susy’s post on it a few weeks ago. It all makes sense if you are reading the true information, there are so much misleading stuff out there. I am also using the cast iron skillets a lot more. What fat are you using to season your cast iron pans with? Coconut oil? I used to use a vegetable oil. Emily
Coconut oil wonderful for seasoning cast iron. I also use palm oil or bacon grease. Any kind of saturated fat like that works wonders. I just ordered a 5 gallon pail of tallow and I’m thinking this will be perfect for the cast iron.
Great! Coconut oil it is. Thanks. Emily
We use plain old bacon fat, or lard, to season our skillets with. It’s a bit cheaper and more accessible for some of us.
Glad you enjoy chaffin’s olive oil. They are just a stone throw from us and have a great farm. We were inspired to get chickens after visiting their farm.