Cut back on cholesterol and saturated fat...

[speckledhen]

REAL foods, folks, not processed crap. We use butter now, have for years. DH eats four or five eggs daily for breakfast and has for many years, even before we got chickens. His cholesterol is very low. Mine is high because of a thyroid malfunction--was surprised when it skyrocketed after my thyroid went kerflooey (yes, that's a word, LOL). I eat much less saturated fat and meat than he does, so it has to do with genetics, not your diet necessarily. The answer is real food, IMO. Shop the edges of the grocery aisles, meats and produce, but preferably grow your own.

We used to have two young doctors, but they left the area and we were crushed. In spite of my DH's excellent cholesterol readings, our new doc (not one we picked, trust me, but the only one we have on the military insurance plan here) is going crazy, insisting he not eat our fresh eggs every day, can you believe it? He thinks it's dangerous. Sheesh, I need to move just to get a better doctor. This guy must not have studied after med school forty years ago.

 

[mamagardener]

Quote:
meat lovers pizza....yummmy!

 

[riderbecky]

Most of you are on the right track. It is very much about eating real food and locally produced foods if at all possible (your own back yard is the best.)

However, it is also more than that. Humans never evolved to eat the things we eat now. Agriculture, meaning the cultivation of grain crops, is only 10,000 years old. It takes millions of years for evolutionary progress to be made. We humans evolved our large brains over 2-3 million years by being opportunistic carnivores. We have the digestive structure to digest animal proteins, not cellulose(plants). Herbivores have multi-chambered stomachs or specially designed digestive apparati like the cecum in horses. (The remains of our cecum is commonly called an appendix it is often removed to prevent poisoning) These are necessary to digest plant matter (grasses). As a result of the cultivation of grain crops, we as a species started eating grains we weren't designed to eat in quantity. The only animal on earth evolved to eat grains in fact is...guess....birds.

These new seed and vegetable oils and shortenings are even more of an offense. Do you know what you have to do to get oil out of a seed or veggie? I do and I don't want to be consuming something that has to be chemically extracted, bleached, deodorized, etc to make an oil. Did you know that Canola is a GMO of Rape Seed, which was processed for use in wood finishes. Rape Seed is highly toxic.

Soya, and all things associated with soya that aren't fermented first is just evil. Don't go there!! Did you know that soya beans were orignally a waste crop? It was planted to fix nitrogen to the soil and plowed under in the fall.

Cholesterol is so important for the body that every cell in the body is capable of making it. It is used to repair damage done to the body though improper diet, stress, life and living. The biggest cause of damage done to the body is from over consumption of sugar. Sugar acts like sand in the blood stream causing all kinds of damage to the vessels. Cholesterol is like the spackle that makes temporary repairs while the cells repair themselves. LDL and HDL aren't cholesterol at all but lipoprotiens that the cholesterol is carried around the body on. LDL carries the cholesterol from the liver to the damaged tissues needing it and HDL carries the used cholesterol from the tissues back to the liver for recycling. A better indicator for CVD is triglycerides. You want low, low, low TG's. Eating saturated fat naturally lowers TG's, raises HDL, and changes your LDL profile from small dense to large fluffy.

I could go on and on but (you'd all wind up with headaches at the end) healthy living and eating is easy if you keep it simple.

1. Eat real food how mother nature presents it to you.
2. Cut out the grains, flour and other gluten grains being the worst offenders.
3. Eat mostly from animal sources. Beef, pork, chicken, fish, seafood, butter, eggs....you get the picture.
4. Learn to cook again. Its fun, delicious and will bring the family back to the kitchen.
5. If you want to loose weight, go as low carb as possible.
6. Don't eat any forms of refined sugar (sugar, HFCS, honey, maple syrup, agave, sugar substitutes...blah, blah, blah). If you have a hankering for something sweet, eat a piece of fruit.

7. Most of all, have fun discovering the world of spices and seasonings, fresh fruit and veg, farmers markets, local meat producers. This way of living healthy is challenging but very satisfying. The thing I have the hardest time finding is raw milk. Being Canadian, we have very strict milk regulations and I don't want to own my own milking animals....way too lazy for that.

One more thing I almost forgot to mention is that there are no indications that high cholesterol is dangerous at all for women...in fact the studies show that the higher our cholesterol, the longer lived. If you have a loved one taking statins...please do you best to get them to stop. Statins (Crestor, Lipitor...etc) are very dangerous and mostly ineffective. The only group that has been minimally helped by taking statins is men under 65 who have already had a heart attack. At the very least if you can't get them to stop, insist that they take CoQ10 with them as a protective measure.

I've slowly been learning this stuff over the past year and the sites I frequent are doctors blogs. If you are interested in learning more I'd be happy to include those sites. And include some book titles you may be interested in.
Best regards,
Becky

 

[Whispering Winds]

It's all in your genes, and not your blue jeans. My DH has high chlor. and triglycerides because that is what he is predisposed to have, but has them under control due to medication and we try to watch the diet, we watch ourselves eat stuff we know is bad for us, but oh do we love it. . .use olive oil, coconut oil and while its $$, don't use it for every single thing . . .I use real unsalted butter. Try to leave milk alone, as a local dairy farmer here uses marshmallows and Sunny D to "sweeten" their milk. I figure if they are doing it, then so are other dairy farmers. An old dairy farmer I know use to feed his ladies chunks of chocolate with peanuts in them he got from a candy factory . . . guess its all about the sweet. Also, two tbsp. of OCV every morning and night do marvelous things for the chlor., as does fish oil, but make sure its GOOD fish oil. Also are finding out that fish oil is helpful in people suffering from depression. Good stuff,and since i hate fish this is an easy way to get the good stuff without having to eat it.

 

[fancbrd4me02]

Genetics has more to do with problems like colesterol, jigh blood pressure and diabetes than doctors want to admit. Your genetics loads the gun, so to speak, and your habits are the trigger. Does that mean that diet and excersize can prevent you from developing high blood pressure if it is in your genes? Maybe sometimes, maybe just put it off a few years. In my family, there is a bad genetic tendency towards early diabetes, some of my family members have developed it as early as 30ish and were not fat or inactive. What else is that but genes?

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

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Its the diet of the grandmother that begins the path for the grandchild.
I will be back later on today to expound a bit more...

 

[riderbecky]

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That is eating too much carbohydrates. Particularly refined carbohydrates...read pop, chips, kool-aid, sugary snacks, pasta, rice, crackers, baked goods (yes, even homemade ones). Carbohydrates turn to glucose in the body. Too much glucose (normal amount of blood sugar is no more than a little less than 1tsp) causes an insulin response. Too much insulin, causes insulin resistance which means your blood sugar stays too high....ergo diabetes. Diabetes (type 2) has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with diet. Saying or thinking anything else is a cop out. High blood sugar happens whether your fat or thin, black or white, christian or muslim...it doesn't discriminate.

Diseases of civilization, diabetes, high blood pressure, cavities, cancer...ect. don't happen in tradiional hunter-gather societies. Ask yourself, "Why is that?" The answer is they don't eat refined crap. They eat meat and the fat thats attached to the meat and what fruits and veggies nature gives to them. To be more blunt, they eat from nature.....not industry!

 

[Amyable]

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Hve you read The Untold Story of Milk? The author talks quite a bit about these societies and their traditional diets. Also how when the young people leave and eat the Western diet, they become ill, but regain their health if they return to eating the "old" foods. Very interesting.
Been trying for ages to get my MIL and step-FIL off of their ridiculous food choices; diet soda, foods from a box, spray oils, lite yogurt... I think we're finally breaking through. We stopped eating a lot of foods they offer when we visit. Used to eat it just to be polite, but not anymore. Why feed the monster? I think it speaks more to reject those "foods" ourselves instead of just saying it's bad and eating it anyway.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

I encourage everyone on here to read this book, or at least look at the pictures and captions, and then talk to me about genetics being the main causer of modern disease

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html

 

[riderbecky]

Quote:
Hve you read The Untold Story of Milk? The author talks quite a bit about these societies and their traditional diets. Also how when the young people leave and eat the Western diet, they become ill, but regain their health if they return to eating the "old" foods. Very interesting.
Been trying for ages to get my MIL and step-FIL off of their ridiculous food choices; diet soda, foods from a box, spray oils, lite yogurt... I think we're finally breaking through. We stopped eating a lot of foods they offer when we visit. Used to eat it just to be polite, but not anymore. Why feed the monster? I think it speaks more to reject those "foods" ourselves instead of just saying it's bad and eating it anyway.

Hiya amyable. Nope, haven't read that one yet...another to add to the growing pile of books. Where will I find the time? I am currently spending alot of my time cruising the nets on blogs like those of Dr. Mike Eades and Dr. Kurt G. Harris and watching documentaries like Fat Head by Tom Naughton and reading Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes or Fat of the Land by Steffanson or watching university lectures on youtube about the evils of fructose and such.
On my wish list is The cholesterol con and the vegetarian myth. I watched a news documentary about the aboriginals of New Zealand and Australia are suffer from Diseases of Civilization and the positive changes that happen in their lives when they go back to their traditional foods.

On a more personal note....My mom was taking a statin for her high cholesterol (we are genetically blessed with high cholesterol) and she was following a food pyramid type diet (as per docs orders)....all the while steadily getting fatter. It was happening to me to. I finally had enough and did some research online starting with some comments by a member of this forum to be exact. I found out lots of stuff and made huge changes. Most of my weight dropped in about 4 months and it took me showing my mom my flat belly (after having 3 kids) to get her to believe me. I also was very plain with her about the realities of taking statins in order to get her to stop. Her mother died of a heart attack at 65 and my mom was really afraid of that happening to her too (me too actually). I don't fear that anymore. I've never felt better. I look great, am wearing the same size I wore before I had kids but am more muscular and all without sweating on a dreadmill. BTW...my mom has lost weight too and is looking fantastic!!