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What olive oil is recommended?
Also, taking this opportunity, I would like to ask you, does your poor night vision and vitamin D levels correlate? It seems to me that I have already lost detoxification cofactors on this diet, and even eating cottage cheese/bananas causes me mazols on hands and red spots in front of my eyes.
I'm thinking if this cofactor could be VD or maybe I need to buy lard...
Hi @daniil,
I don't have a recommendation on the olive oil. I don't use much olive oil anymore, and the amount I now use is only for cooking a steak (about 1-2 time /week). The oil I do use is from Costco. It's called Terra Delyssa Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
I've not been checking my vit D levels, so I don't know about the correlation with my night vision. Although my episodes with poor night vision have always happened in the winter, so that would correlate with a lower vit D.
But, what has always correlated with poor night vision is having dry eyes.
Currently my night vision is very good and we are getting back into winter. So, the dry air and lower vitamin D might cause it to reoccur in the next few months. I'll report on it if it I develop again.
"We found extra virgin olive oil (cold pressed) to contain some lutein and b-carotene as well as substantial amounts of a- and g-tocopherol. The more refined ‘extra light’ olive oil did not contain carotenoids in amounts detectable by our method. Lutein (0.3mg=100 ml) and b-carotene (0.07mg=100 ml) were identified in extra virgin olive oil using a colourimetric method (Ranalli et al, 1999b). These results were similar with respect to lutein, but the bcarotene content was less than we identified. This may be a real difference due to olive variety or seasonal/climatic effects, or it may be an artefact due to methodological differences."
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I was watching a commercial, I will try to find it later, it was a long infomercial about the benefits of olive oil and a special olive oil that they were trying to sell.
It began by telling people to brush their teeth with olive oil because it is a fat and because of that it would take away plaque and whiten teeth. Well, my ears pricked up, because I kind of think one of the reasons people get yellow teeth is VA. Then it talked about how people in the Mediterranean basically guzzle olive oil at each meal, LOL and get so many benefits from it.
It made me wonder if olive oil MIGHT absorb vitamin A on it's way through the body (just as it might take VA away from the teeth)? Could that be why people think it is so great?
I think I've been particularly anti-olive oil as most "health foodies" go... I just don't like it. Have I suffered because of that choice? And in general, have I been wrong to be living sort of "low fat" in the last few years trying to detox from VA, and if I ate higher fat would it perhaps absorb some of the loose VA floating around and take it away as it leaves?
It almost makes me want to experiment with olive oil a bit.
@lil-chick, I am so glad to see your post! I haven’t seen many from you lately, so I was wondering if all was well.
I lived in Greece some 35 years ago and yes, every self-respecting taverna had a bottle of olive oil on the table; every household too.
Fat is important and it would be interesting to find out if olive oil has the properties you mentioned. The conventional people say that we need fats to help absorb fat soluble vitamins… Those eating traditional Mediterranean diet are pretty healthy while consuming plenty of vitamin A. But maybe living under the hot sun for most of the year gives their bodies sufficient energy to get rid of it.
What is a better oil to substitute for EVOO?
I am currently using the regular EVOO sold as 'first pressing' because this is what I have in the house.
I thought Coconut oil was a no-no due to it absorbing serum retinonic acid but in a bad- none 'RBP' type of way. I am confused on this point. I do use oil to cook my brown rice if I bake it and certainly do not want to be adding VA or beta carotene if there are alternatives.
I am sure I can find lard easily in my area due to a large hispanic population. Is this recommended? I guess I would melt it if I wanted to coat a pan prior to baking.
I just had a thought- my roommate routinely cooks steaks in a particular way- sears on range in iron skillet and finishes slightly in the oven. There are drippings. Provided he does not use butter (would need to ask) could these drippings be substituted- I guess that is what lard is- although these remain liquid at room temp (he keeps them in a glass jar before discarding them so they don't go into our pipes).
My grandparents were of the depression era and one was orphaned at age 6 in the 20s so had an especially hard time. As a child in their home from 1970s to late 1990s, they saved and reused everything- including drippings from every meal prep. hmmm.
Thanks to everyone for contributing to this post!
Lard and tallow are both "rendered" fat, meaning it is the pure fat that comes out of the raw chunks of fat from an animal when heated (the raw chunks usually contain the fat inside some kind of proteinaceous matrix).
Drippings contain rendered fat and a bunch of water-soluble nutrients. I would definitely take the drippings from your roommate if they aren't using them. I don't understand why people don't just eat the drippings with the meat they came out of...I guess it's because they've succumbed to all the misinformation about animal fat being bad for you...stupid propaganda campaigns have messed up so many lives.
The only time I wouldn't eat the drippings is if the meat has been cooked at high temps and the drippings contain a bunch of burnt protein and oxidized fat.
@wavygravygadzooks, thanks for that explanation. I don’t know why people don’t use them either. Previously I was following a high volume but lower in fat (to accomplish this) diet.
This type of diet allowed me to maintain a healthy weight but always ‘be able to eat something’ and stay within a calorie range. I had done it so long, and fruit/veg were my go to snacks, that it became easy to follow. I lost my chef of a husband and my MS fatigue limited meal prep- veggies require a lot of chopping (which requires bandaids for me @lil-chick) so I tried keto- less to prep but did extremely poorly- GI-wise on this, precipitating a health crisis- see my bio for details if interested.
I was concerned with needlessly adding VA with a plant based oil. Some things are “worth it” to splurge on occasionally- olive oil doesn’t rank in my book.
The roommate’s drippings from seared ribeye should work just fine then- per your advisements- when a recipe could use oil.
I appreciate your input!
I'm going to contradict @wavygravygadzooks, but their opinion is valid as there are several people eating a low-vitamin A diet who include beef drippings, bacon, lard, and have successfully improved their health while doing so.
I've always had an aversion to pork and pork fat since I was a small child, and I haven't eaten any during the detox because it may contain retinoic acid, or some other form of vitamin A:
Pork - Discussion | Ideas, Concepts, and Observations (ggenereux.blog)
I do eat some beef fat with my ground beef, but too much makes me feel queasy. If you enjoy it and do well on it @grace, that's the main thing, I think!