In My post about Nigerian Carb Sources for gym members I explained that Carbs are not as bad for you as you think craking my a timeless joke I invented.
EATING CARBS WILL NOT MAKE YOU THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, Lol, the reason why I cracked that joke is because I was trying to make room for people who eat a lot of fatty and oily food (pun intended).
If you eat too much fats and oil bro I'm sending you to the first episode of The Biggest Loser Nigeria Premering whenever you are ready.
Do you want to know how you know eating too much fat will make you fat? It is in the name!! This is the only time Dietitians and Fitness folk came together for one common goal...to have people watch out. It's like instead of calling protein "protein" they called it "muscle builder" or they called carbs "quick energy"...Fat will make you fat.
Fats and oil are not filling and are very calorie-dense. This is good news for those who are underweight because fats and oil as well as carbs have a protein-sparing effect. The problem is that fats and oil also have a tendency to toy with your body's lipid profile.
This is Informed Decision NG where we help you make the difficult decision of starting out your workout and keep you consistent all through. In this post, I will be breezing through fat and oil sources that are available for Nigerians and are good for your health. We will be giving more information about these oil sources and what you should be keeping your eyes on when you are buying fats and oil from a supermarket shelf.
As an added bonus I will debunk research work that changed the way you and I see palm oil.
Sources
There is a big problem when discussing nutrition, especially fats and oil because there are hardly any placebo studies that can be used as references1.
A placebo drug is a drug that does not work used to see just how effective a drug that works is...what's a placebo food? Plastic food?
The research work that was done on other animals and you don't need to be a biology professor to know that human beings are not large mice or rabbits.
So let us get all of that out of the way...we really do not know how effective our diet is in preventing some of the major conditions we think they cause.
We are very sure that fats and oils are linked to an increased risk of obesity, heart diseases and certain cancers. Transfats in processed food seem to be the culprit but they seem to be lumped in (lol lumped in) with all these other fat and oil constituents like polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats which are good for your health and saturated fat which are possibly (and controversially) inert2 3.
The ground rules of this post
First I will not tolerate questions like "Where you dey buy your own oil?" you will respect my privacy and the privacy of my vendor in this conversation.
On a more serious note, I will be dividing all the fat and oil sources into the amount of saturated and unsaturated fats they contain. I will also be dividing the unsaturated fats into monounsaturated and polyunsaturated.
We are into fitness here, so, we are also interested in the omega-3 and the omega-6 polyunsaturated fat ratio which plays a role in heart and joint health.
Most Nigerian fats and oils contain high omega-6 content but low omega-3 content. Omega-6 has a bad cholesterol (LDL)-lowering effect but it is pro-inflammatory and excessive intake has been linked to autoimmune immune diseases and asthma4 5.
The perfect ratio has scientists fighting right now so we'll allow them to fight and get back to us. Just try to get some of each daily/weekly.
After that, we'll go Mortal Kombat finish him mode and talk about the amount of Calories in each source.
Source
Groundnut oil: Groundnut/peanuts/goober whatever you like to call it is a wonderful fat and oil source, but, but butt, it has for every 100g 51.6g of fat 12.4g of which is the spooky saturated fat and 48.6g is the well-loved and respected unsaturated fat.
Of the Unsaturated fatty acids, 24.3g is Monounsaturated and 24.3g is polyunsaturated.
The Omega-3 fatty acid found in groundnut is very small and many sources say you should not rely on them for this fatty acid. The Omega-6 content however is about 15.56g in the 100g serving6.
100g of groundnut oil is about 0.11L and that amounts to about 900 calories.
Depending on the extraction method 100g of groundnut seeds can provide 47 to 55g of oil7.
Source
Egusi: Egusi or wild watermelons is a type of plant seed that we love to add to our soup. You can find almost every culture in Nigeria with its own recipe for egusi (if you don't vote for egusi you ain't Nigerian). Alongside having protein it is also rich in fats and oil.
In 100g of egusi, there is a whooping sum of 47g. 5.5g to 5.8g of that is spooky (I mean saturated). Some might even argue that it is negligible (yay!).
The unsaturated content in egusi is the rest and includes both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Among the polyunsaturated fatty acids, egusi has just omega-6 but rarely any omega-3 fatty acid content8.
The caloric value of egusi ranges from 182 to about 600 calories9.
Source
Fish oil: If I have to introduce fish to you, you probably live under a rock but fish oil might be new to you so...Where do we get fish oil from? Fish: Salmon, Herring, Mackerel Sardines (yes I said Sardines), Tuna and, Trout. Fish is one of my best picks for protein if you have a fridge but if you don't you can always by cans.
Fish oil is awesome if your diet comprises mostly of fish like people from the south of Nigeria. Fish contains about 1.5g to 2.6g in 100g. Fish oil comprises of Omega-3 fatty acid 1.3g and 3.2g of omega-6 fatty acid.
Other sources
Other fantastic sources of good fats and oil are eggs, avocado, crayfish (that's still fish bro), grass-fed beef and olive oil.
1 large egg has about 1.6g of saturated fat but it also has monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Avocado is high is monounsaturated fats and 2.1g per 100g serving of pear. Crayfish is a good source of omega-3 fatty acid and has 0.2g of saturated fat per 100g serving10.
Grass-fed beef is higher in omega-3 fatty acids and lower isn saturated fat than grain-fed beef with about 2.5g of saturated fat per 100g11.
Olive oil is high in monounsaturated fats and has about 13g of saturated fat per 100g. But it is expensive...it just is...12
Palm Oil
I told you I would be debunking some of the research done on palm oil. Palm oil is used to make a lot of things we eat and even apply on our body. which is why I can't help but wonder if there is a conspiracy to keep those who have palm oil ignorant about it. So that white people can harvest it like corn.
I'll be making a longer post about palm oil but here is what I want you to know.
- The research done on palm oil causing cancer was done by infusing cancer cells on rats and giving them palm oil. Humans are not cancer-infused rats13.
- Palm oil does not have trans fats.
- Palm oil is in Nutella...and a lot of the food we already eat like biscuit etc14.
- Palm oil has a higher heat threshold than most oils in the market.
- Palm oil is high in omega-6 with 10.1g per 100g servings15.
The problem with most oils, Palm oil included is the way they are processed. you want cold-pressed organic oil from the palm fruit rather than CO2 extraction from the nuts (avoid the nuts).
Also, avoid reusing oil after frying...its bad for your health.
Well that's all I have for Fats, I'll go more indept on palm oil some other time.
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If you like this post, you will definitely like these post
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