There are some foods I really WISH were healthy. Cherry Ripe bars are one of them! But a quick squiz at the ingredients list yields unpromising results:

‘Health nuts’ seem to go a little nutty over nuts… raw and roasted nuts, trail mix, nut spreads, bars and milks are the dietary darlings of the health conscious. However, nuts and seeds certainly aren’t the ‘superfoods’ you might believe them to be.

Coconut is a brilliant oil to cook with as it as highly saturated, therefore stable even at high temperatures and will retain all its beneficial properties (see this post for more about coconut oil and nutrition). This recipe is gluten-free, low in PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids), high in beneficial MCTs (medium chain triglycerides) and quality protein.

It’s quite shocking that polyunsaturated fats are still being touted as “healthy” fats, as the scientific literature clearly shows the damage caused by these types of fats in a multitude of both animal and human studies. Recommending the consumption of polyunsaturated oils for their ‘heart-healthy benefits’ is equivalent (or worse) than the old 20th century medical adage to prescribe smoking as a treatment for sufferers of chronic asthma (true).

As the incidence of obesity and other diet-related conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and some forms of cancer have skyrocketed in Western developed countries in the last hundred years, it’s interesting to look back at how the main foods in our diets have changed during this same time period. 

Sitting down to a big bowl of vegetables might make you feel smugly ‘wholesome’, but if you’re not getting a decent bit of fat along with it then you’re missing out on many of the vitamins and minerals that make those vegetables so nutritious in the first place. 

That old and dusty hypothesis that dietary cholesterol causes a significant increase in blood cholesterol, thereby correlating with heart disease has long been put to rest. Many studies have confirmed that dietary cholesterol in fact has very little to do with cholesterol seen in the body, and that serum cholesterol levels may not be indicative of heart disease risk as once presumed1. Eggs, like most cholesterol-rich foods, are jam-packed with important nutrients, especially fat-soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids.

I’ve never been a mayo lover. I’ve avoided it since I was a kid because I thought I didn’t like the taste. Then I shunned commercial mayo because I realized it was super high in poor-quality polyunsaturated vegetable oils (usually canola or soybean). But today I decided to give homemade mayo a chance, and it turned out well!