omega 3 - good fats!

[suze]

In Foods To Fight Cancer Prof Beliveau and Dr Gingas have 11 chapters on foods they call nutraceuticals: foods which are specifically good at targetting cancer.

I'm going to do a little thread on each one which sums up the value of the particular food or food group and then where we can add our own comments or recipes etc for each one.

[suze]

omega3

This is one of the most depressing facts in the whole anti-cancer material. In short: the process of bulking up cattle with grain instead of letting them just munch on grass has led to a massive imbalance in the amount of omega3 and omega6 in the food chain. Omega3 and omega6 should be in a ratio of one to one in cattle and thus in their milk and thus in other dairy products adn thus in US! ! !

Due to intensive farming methods ... Omega 6 has gone ballistic, and totally out of balance with omega 3. . . . and this can be linked to imflammation, a risk for your heart health as well as a cancer risk. This is one of the biggest changes in our diets in the past 50 year.

We need to eat more omega3 to redress the balance and to serve as a vital anti-inflammatory.

Summary
p.131
1. The greatest nutritional deficiency in a Westerner's diet is the low intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids of the omega3 variety.

2. Omega3 fatty acids are unstable so it is best to eat them in whole foods rather than as supplements.

3. Improve your omega3 balance by eating oily fish (salmon, mackerel, sardines,) twice a week; add crushed linseed to your cereal; use linseed oil for salad dressings.

[suze]

You should also avoid eating red meat at all, really.

BUT if you want to eat it, try to find an organic source that feeds the cattle on grass without grain supplements. Ditto for milk and cheese .. but it you're going to reduce your daiy intake you really need to add calcium supplements, esp if you are a woman over 50. Soya milk is available with calcium built in ..

btw on this issue of calcium, I sort of thought, "well my bones are already strong, so why worry?" but I recently learnt that your body uses calcium in other things, like muscles contracting, and if there isn't enough in your diet it will take it from your bones ------> hence the risk of osteoporosis ...

so I take calcium with vitamin D supplements (vit D aids absorption of calcium)

[suze]

I find this quite hard to understand, but re-reading the sections is helping me to clarify it in my own mind!

These oils are called essential cos we do not make them in our own bodies, we are entirely depdt on diet to get them. They work best in a 1:1 ratio. The imbalance found in Western human bodies is often 1:15 even as much as 1:40

Omega 6 help stock fats and promote rigidity in cells as well as coagulation and inflammation in response to outside aggression. (by the by this business of promoting fat cells accounts for part of our obestiy epidemic too, even babies are getting fatter ingesting too much omega6 in their mother's milk!)

Inflammation and cell growth are cancer promoters. Therefore it makes sense to reduce your Omega6 intake.

Omega3 regulates both inflammation and cell growth, so it makes sense to eat more of it.

Sources of Omega3:

linseed and linseed oil
walnuts and walnut oil
oily fish like salmon, sardines, mackerel, trout
other nuts
rapeseed oil
soya beans

I aim to use linseed oil most days, and eat one of the nuts, fish or soya as my protein at one meal per day.

As well as increasing your omega3 intake you should reduce your omega6 by eating less meat and dairy foods. In addition you should stop eating veg oils like corn and sunflower ... despite other "health" advice .. confusing innit!

And what you definitely should never eat is any sort of margerine, cos the process of hardening liquid oils into solids is not natural. Solidified fats like this are known as trans fats and they cause damage to cells.

If you want to spread olive oil on your bread use it in its original liquid form.

[anne]

This is partly why we travel 20 miles to our favourite farm shop in Somerset to buy meat and I drink organic milk 90% of the time. Unfortunately organic beef mince and belly pork is cheaper than organic chicken ...

I feel if I was completely vegetarian I'd eat a lot more fat though, take in far more calories - even though the fat itself might be "better" .

[suze]

interesting that, about eating more fat .. it's possibly true, but there are so FEW calories in pure veg that you can eat loads and loads of them and they only need a tiny bit of fat to go with them ... I don't think I use as many calories in a spoon of oil as I woudl with a pork chop or some sausages ...

It is also not nec true you'd put on weight .. in one of the studies they fed ppl the same food, but one lot of ppl exclusively from organic well-fed creatures and one lot from the normal type .. they were surprised to find that the organic meat eating lot lost a few pounds over 3 months ...

curious but that is what they found ...

[suze]

and I lost five stones eating mainly vegan! Too much veggie in Uk is about cream and cheese, which is rubbish! I'm relishing my new veggie cook book .... exciting recipes from around the world!

[suze]

quick check on this site for calories, they reckon 1 tbspoon olive oil is 120 calories

A small (3oz) pork chop is 190 or 220 if it is not 100% lean.

calorie count site

you have to be really careful not to go slooshing oil about, or you totally undermine your calorie count, that's for sure ..

but I want to take in the omega3, and simply I can't get it without calories -

[anne]

I'm reading this while eating a wholemeal sardine sandwich ..

.. are tinned sardines (tuna and salmon) as good as ones from the fishmonger's slab? The omega-3 oils will be the same, but does the canning process affect their nutritional value at all?

I'd miss my cheese! I try to manage by using very strong cheddar, or even parmesan, because you get more for less, as it were.

And what you definitely should never eat is any sort of margerine, cos the process of hardening liquid oils into solids is not natural. Solidified fats like this are known as trans fats and they cause damage to cells.

This is my excuse for using butter On the other hand, of course, butter is saturated fat ... oh dear!

[suze]

yes but I'm going with butter .. well ghee .. the amount I eat is small enough to no worry about ..
the whipped up anxiety about butter is probaly part of margerine sales ppl's pitch as much as it is about health FACT!

I have the idea that tinned tuna is pretty bereft of quality, but I dunno if that is right or just somethin I think! how do we find out?

[mumndad]

To true tin tunafish is said to be drained of all its natural food value, far better to have a small piece of fresh tuna with its goodness left in.
Tin salmon is said to be O K.
We are not eating any olivia at the moment and Ive not ate any butter at home since last Sept. The trouble with eating out is you can not be sure of whats on the bread or in the veg.

[barbara]

Since reading the book , I have bought Organic Premium milled Flaxseed from Freeport Health food shop. We have two teaspoons on cereals every morning and it appears to have a better shelf life than the liquid.

[suze]

ah - good point that you can just eat the seeds not the oil .. and yes, they have to milled, or home-ground, cos you don't get the nutrient if you dont crack their little seed cases!

[suze]

Took Babara's tip on the ground flax seeds, very easy to add to morning oats and berries, pleased with that advice.

Just read on anti-cancer's facebook

Remember not all eggs are created equal: Choose only omega-3 eggs, or don't eat the yolks. Hens are now fed on mostly corn and soybeans, and their eggs contain 20 times more pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids than cell-growth regulating omega-3s

SO am only going to buy omega 3 labelled eggs, can't quite get into the keeping my own chickens route that my sister has gone down!

eternal vigilance to be a strict ant-cancer person .. and this is another mark against eating cakes, cos they have eggs in as well as sugar and white flour! ;D

[suze]

we can eat lots of vegetables and fruit, and wholegrain cereal ..

you could grind nuts up to use in food since you are too wary to eat whole ones ...

it's not joke how perverted the food industry is, and it's hard to work around it, but I think it's worth it!