Welcome back, Fat!  I’m so happy to see you again…  

My days were incomplete without you.  Each morning now I look forward to drinking a bulletproof coffee with butter from grass-fed cows, or blending up my green tea with nourishing coconut oil.  I can confidently snack on some good ol’ fashioned potato chips because they are made by Jackson’s Honest— a company who slow-cooks their chips in coconut oil (the queen of saturated fats).  I stayed away from fats for so long and, now that I’m embracing them again, my mind and body are shouting “Thank you!”.  These saturated fats are giving me satiation, brain power, and fuel for my day.  What a relief it is to finally realize that much of what we thought about fat was WRONG!  

Coconut oil is making a huge comeback now for this very reason.  It’s one of the most stable, nourishing, saturated fats on Earth!  Just 2 Tablespoons of coconut oil a day provides the short chain fats needed to protect our gut health, our liver, nerves, brain, and cardiovascular system .  

Brands like Jackson’s Honest (JH) are taking the reigns, bringing back these healthy fats, and preparing foods in ways that maximize their benefits.  Once I got my hands on these chips, I knew I’d found a treasure.  JH cares about every ingredient they use.  Not only do they care about sourcing the right ingredients, but they understand that ingredients must be treated in a way that maximizes their nutrients, AND in a way that minimizes any potential toxins.  Some companies use coconut oil, but they fry foods at temperatures way beyond the coconut oil smoke point (350 degrees F).  The issue here is that when fats are damaged by heat (or oxidation), they unleash dangerous free radicals in the body.  To avoid these cancer-causing free radicals, we must be mindful and use cooking methods that bring out the best in fats!  JH uses a low and slow cooking method, carefully sustaining a temperature that keeps coconut oil happy and chips crunchy.  That’s reason enough right there for me to dig on some JH chips.  But there’s more!

Low temperature cooking actually cuts the glycemic index in HALF!  What’s glycemic index?  The glycemic index of a food is a number that tells us how quickly our body converts that food into sugar.  Potatoes are known for having a higher glycemic index, but when you boil or slow cook, instead of frying or roasting, the glycemic index of potatoes reduces drastically!  Another amazing fact is that fats, and acids like vinegar, reduce the glycemic index even more.  This is because fats and acids slow down the speed at which we digest the starchy foods.  I keep this in mind when I’m munching down on some Jackson’s Honest chips because all of the varieties are slow-cooked in coconut oil, and they even have a sea salt and vinegar version…win win all around!

Did you know that our bodies need fat to convert certain plant nutrients into vitamins?  Like the beta-carotene in sweet potatoes or red heirloom potatoes; We can only convert that beta-carotene if we have the food with fat!  Sweet Potatoes + Coconut Oil = Vitamin Central!

After reading this you may still be pondering how much fat is really safe. 

Are you wondering how we got so far off the fat track in the first place?  
Think about a time when you saw a black and white photo of your great, great grandparents, or photos of people from the early 1900’s…people were looking pretty thin, right?  They didn’t go to gyms, or count calories, or even think about calories Continue reading →