Are you confused about which oils are healthy? Me too!!
Coconut oil is good, olive oil is bad….Wait, maybe coconut oil isn’t good for you…BLAH! If you get nerdy like I do, it’s really about who funded so the oil narrative goes their way. I also feel strongly that, instead of looking at whole foods as being the solution for healthy living, we try to pinpoint what exactly makes people healthy.
And, if you’re an American, you see that once something is given the golden crown of ‘healthy’, Americans smear it on every orifice of their body & put it in every recipe imaginable.
Why Olive & Coconut Oil Are Labelled As “Heart Healthy”
We’ve all heard of how trans fats are bad, but what about plant based ones? Like coconut oil or olive oil, they’re suppose to be great for us!
When researchers looked at Greeks & others who eat a Mediterranean diet, they saw that they had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and strokes) than those who didn’t eat that way. Therefore, canola oil & butter were deemed bad & olive oil was said to help protect the heart.
But what else is included in a Mediterranean diet? A high intake of fruits and vegetables, low intake of red meat, and low sugar. So couldn’t it be argued that the high consumption of plants was the reason for the lower cardiovascular risk? You can watch this video about olive oil and artery function.
Now onto the beloved coconut oil, where you can get MCTs (medium chain triglycerides). Once again, we see one food being show as the super food. If you haven’t heard about MCTs, they’re said to help lower blood cholesterol levels, and are found in coconut oil. But where did we get that they were the ‘super’ oil?
A study looked at a population of people on a Melanesian island that had virtually no cardiovascular disease. This low rate of arterial disease, of course, wasn’t attributed to the fact that they only ate fish 2-4 times a week (versus daily meat consumption in the US) or the high intake of fruits and veggies..it was said to be because of coconut oil, which was never consumed by itself but always as an entire food (i.e. a coconut)
The takeaway: that diets high in plants are best for cardiovascular health
Now, don’t take this as saying we don’t have olive and coconut oil in our home. We do, but I’ve been opting to sauté vegetables in vegetable broth or water, bake with whole foods such as beans or avocados, and avoid unnecessary oil usage. I’ve decreased the amount of oil I use to make my hummus and make this oil free granola recipe instead. I’m by no means perfect, but am aiming for a more whole food diet!
Oil Free Granola Recipe
- 3 cups organic rolled oats
- ⅓ cup maple syrup or honey
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice)
- 2 tablespoons almond butter
- ¼-½ cup chopped pecans
- ¼-½ cup pepita (shelled pumpkin) seeds
Preheat your oven to 350*F
Melt your almond butter for a 15-ish seconds to make it easier to mix in.
Add all ingredients except the pecans and seeds into a bowl. Mix together. You may need to sort of ‘fold’ the oats into the almond butter to help coat the oats and make little crunchy clusters.
Add in the pecans and seeds and mix in.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Spread your mixture out as flat as possible.
Bake for 10 minutes then pull out your pan, stir the granola (bring the granola on the outside edge of the sheet to the middle so it doesn’t burn), and then place back in your oven for an additional 10 minutes.
Allow to cool then place in a glass jar to use on smoothie bowls, as a cereal, or with fruit.
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