Whole30: Day 25 - What is Up with Oil?

Wake Up: 8:30am Okay sleep last night, 9 hours worth.

Breakfast: 10:00am

I went with a yellow theme today. It's getting to be slim pickin's in the fridge today so this was another strange breakfast of leftovers. I had some of Katies spicy soup, some pineapple, and two eggs with salsa inside. It was really filling and I definitely feel like a reformed girl when it comes to breakfast. I used to skip breakfast often and it would really set up my day to be a bad one. This is so much better when I start off with good food. I am not naturally hungry in the morning. But getting into this habit has been awesome.

Lunch: 12:20pm

We took Annie to the puppet theatre for a show today. There is a cute little coffee shop next to it and we love to sit in there and drink coffee and order food. My salad was not great, although I wolfed it down. Usually his salad dressings are homemade but this one wasn't and so after dumping a little on there I ate the rest dry. There were olives and mandarin oranges, and spinach, and almonds. It was healthy food, just not what I was quite going for. But the rest of the menu is panini sandwiches, so they were a no go.

Walking: 2:00-4:30pm

After the puppet show we went for a huge long walk down into downtown. We were on our feet for several hours. Troy and Annie got ice cream at Little Man Ice Cream Shop. It's the place in Denver that always has a really long line and everything is home made and the flavors are crazy flavors. It's a pretty cool spot and it feels like the umpteenth time I've said "no" to these sorts of things over the last 25 days, but I know it's not.

Dinner: 6:15pm

After getting home we were all tired and hungry and nobody wanted to cook, and Troy wanted chips. We finally settled on a trip to Chipotle but it was really frustrating me inside that we were giving in. Chipotle is Whole30 if you do it right but the meat isn't organic, and they use unhealthy oil, and I knew I had better in my fridge. So I just put my big girl pants on and made us up three plates with just about all the left overs we had in the house. Oh, and I made Bison Meatballs (the Italian Meatball recipe in Well Fed2) earlier today so we had those in the last of the leftover meat sauce. Sweet potato and avocado on the side. I REALLY need to go grocery shopping tomorrow, it's a must do. And we got paid Friday and I bumped the food budget up to $550 for the next two weeks so I should have some cash to buy the good stuff. These vacuum sealer reviews have changed my kitchen and my life, I always have food ready to be warmed up straight from my freezer!

Oil: Shaking Head, Looking Lost...

Okay, today I want to talk a bit about oil. I'm frustrated with oil and I have to get it out. What on earth is the healthy way to go here? And how unhealthy are the less than perfect ways? And why are there so many differing opinions? I tossed the canola long ago. It's clear when you go to the store and there's a huge bottle of it and it's super cheap that something just 'aint right. So it's been out of my pantry for snobbish reasons for a long time. I have coconut oil, light olive oil, a HUGE container of Extra Vigin Olive Oil, a HUGE container of Grapeseed Oil, and some small containers of one offs like walnut oil and sesame oil for specific recipes. When I started attending Wildtree workshops I started buying Grapeseed oil. There was a big sheet we got and it sounded like grapeseed was a better option than EVOO. They had all these infused oils, like Garlic Grapeseed that was good with my eggs. So I bought that and used quite a bit of it last year.

Then I read It Starts With Food and they were like "no no no" to the Grapeseed oil because of the PUFAs. What the $%&#*% are the PUFAs and why is nobody talking about them? And just exactly how bad are these PUFAs and what are they again?? PUFA stands for Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids. My understanding it that these are where the Omega-6 and Omega-3 are contained (good thing...for the 3, not so much the 6...too much 6 and too little 3 is bad). But the problem is that PUFA are extremely vulnerable to oxidation. So heating these oils and storing them in sun or past shelf life make the PUFAs degrade and apparently the result is free radicals. Now I don't know what they heck those are, but it's my understanding they are to be avoided at all costs, even the wikipedia page makes them sound quite thug-like. Everything I'm reading says lots of PUFA is bad bananas and that it slows metabolism as well. And Grapeseed Oil...lots of PUFA.

It Starts With Food wants consumers to use Coconut Oil and Clarified Butter (only from super happy healthy pastured cows) for cooking at medium to high heat, and EVOO for dressings and low heat cooking. This is all very Paleo endorsed stuff. Oh and Avocado Oil, that's allowed too but I really haven't researched that very much, although I did just order some.

I really liked this article from Marcs Daily Apple on Oils.

Also, most the articles on PUFAs are coming from Paleo sites, so that has me kinda suspicious too. Is that bad? Why do I feel like everyone has an agenda when it comes to food and nobody is telling the truth? Are PUFAs a Paleo made up danger just to get everyone back to eating the saturated fats in animals and feeling okay with it?? OY VEY! Hence why I'm frustrated with oils.

JUST TELL ME THE ANSWER PEOPLE!

"It's complicated"

So here I sit with all this oil in my pantry...not sure where to go with it. My next question was about shelf life. Um, wow. I learned that the pantry above my stove is dark (yea! oil likes dark) but warm (boo, oil does not like warm). So the oils need to be fresh and they need to go in the fridge where it's dark and cool. I also heard an awesome tip the other day that if you don't want to snack at night, just take the light bulb out of your fridge....GENIUS! It will make your oil more happy too. Oil does have shelf life and I found this video on nutritionfacts.org about some tests that were run on oil shelf life. Fridge, dark, cool, buy small bottles. That's my rules from now on. What oils? I don't know! But they are going in the fridge, with the light bulb out, and only being purchased in small bottles that I will use over a few months.