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Health & Fitness

The "Skinny" On Vegetable Oils

What things are lurking in our pre-packaged foods that are only making us fatter? These things contribute to the heart attack rates as well. Read on to learn more and protect yourself!

Clean eating isn’t just about eating fruits, vegetables and lean meats. We need to look at the type of oils that we put in our bodies as well.

As we discussed last week, processed foods are extremely bad for us. Here are a few of the culprits that like to “hang out” in our beloved processed foods that not only make us fatter, but also contribute to heart disease, heart failure, high blood pressure and many other problems that we are all so concerned about.

Soybean oil, cottonseed oil and basically any type of “vegetable oil” is detrimental to our health. Look at the ingredients that are in what you buy at the grocery store. Are you feeding your family these products? Are you cooking with these oils? These oils are Omega 6 oils that are chemically processed. Yes, unfortunately this also includes Canola oil. Many people have used Canola oil thinking it was a healthier alternative to other vegetable oils. Originally Canola was bred naturally from rapeseed and had a very different nutritional profile.

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Now, Canola oil is made at a processing facility by heating the seed slightly and then crushing it. It is then refined using hexane. It is furthermore refined using water precipitation and organic acid, “bleaching” with clay and then finally deodorized using steam distillation. To make a long story short, it is chemically processed and is therefore not healthy for us after going through this process.

Our bodies are not built to break down these chemically processed oils in the digestion process. Women especially store these oils as fat on their hips, butt and belly. Women’s bodies are designed to store Omega 3 fats in these areas in order for future babies that they carry to have healthy brains.

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The more Omega 6 oils that we consume, the more fat our bodies store, looking for Omega 3′s. You can eat foods that contain Omega 3′s, but if you are also eating Omega 6′s, your body essentially cancels out the Omega 3′s. In a nutshell we need to eliminate Omega 6′s from our diets and eat more Omega 3′s.

Omega 3 oils can be found naturally in raw walnuts, flax seeds, chia seeds and salmon, just to name a few. A couple of great alternative oils to use are grapeseed oil, coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil (EVOO).

If you can cut these processed foods and oils out of your daily diet, not only will you feel better but you should also be able to lose some fat cells as well!

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