6 foods that will cut your cholesterol – what nonsense!

I could not help it. I just opened that article and… oh, my god! Is this what public actually reads and follows? Here are the foods that supposedly lower cholesterol:

• Benecol  margarine,
• oats,
• canola oil,
• whole wheat bread,
• soy and nuts.

There is a reason why I do not follow that advice and I never will. My way of improving people’s heath in not by suggesting GMO foods. Whoever wrote this article did not peak his head outside corporate ads. The thinking is outdated and the advice is frankly health damaging.

Why I wouldn’t lower my cholesterol

I have cholesterol envy numbers. My TotalChol is 4.08 (158), LDL (bad) is 1.73 (67) and HDL (good) is 2.13 (82). Notice that my HDL (good) is s higher than LDL (bad), a rare find.

You may think that I am on a fat avoidance frenzy, but I am not. In fact, I purposely eat high cholesterol diet. This is not a typo nor a misunderstanding. I eat my eggs yolks and beef fat like there is no tomorrow. How old am I? You never ask a lady that, but here is a hint… kind of menopausal.

So how come I can have such perfect heart numbers despite not taking the bite out of the foods suggested? Because not every advice is good, and that article is an example of such.

Foods that lower cholesterol

Interested in diet to lower cholesterol? Then you need to remember just one rule: cholesterol is in animal products only. There is none of it in plant food, so whether it is an almond, carrots, onions, banana, or aduki it makes no difference.

You should roll your eyes at “no cholesterol” labels on food boxes. If it is olive oil, cereal box, or fruit snack there never was any in it to begin with. It is not like you should watch out for a cholesterol version of olive oil, Kashi cereal or Fruit to go. Marketing labels take advantage of uninformed. Don’t fall for them.

Here is another myth: avoiding dietary cholesterol will give you great numbers. Baloney! If this would be the case then vegans would have zero cholesterol on lab reports, but do they? Of course, not!

Cholesterol is a vital substance, production of which is regulated by the liver. Whether you like it or not dietary changes play a very small part in in this case. Low fat diets do not translate to cleaner arteries.

Reason behind high cholesterol

No substance in body is made randomly, just because. Consider, if cholesterol is so detrimental to our health why would body even make it?

However, if your numbers are obviously out of whack then you want to look at the most effective treatment there is and use a method that not only can lower cholesterol, but also improve health, a concept that is foreign to the the journalist who suggested the six foods above.

So here are my reasons against these foods:

1. Benecol margarine is a mix of olive oil, canola oil, vegetable oil and plant stanols. Why I wouldn’t touch it? Oils are from GMO plants and contain large amount of inflammatory PUFA (polyunsaturated fatty acids), stanols are poorly absorbed and also decrease absorption of vital nutrients such as beta carotene and vitamin D. Benecol contains artificial flavorings. Absolutely none of the above ingredients meet my criteria for healthy foods.
2. Oats: I see no problem with oats as a food, although a cup of plain oats contain 32g of carbs (equivalent to 10 cubes of sugar). Oats contain gluten, one of the most intestine damaging substance. The “amazing” reduction of 5% of total cholesterol over three months by eating oats is really a very poor result. You may want to check out how to do it better
3. Canola oil. I avoid GMO and PUFA (same as Benecol). Canola oil is just that, GMO full of pesticide residues.
4. Whole wheat bread: Whole wheat vs white wheat? There is only 1 gram fibre difference per slice. The number is negligible and cannot do much for cleaning of the arteries. Besides, removing excess fat is the job of soluble fibre, not the insoluble one that is present in wheat. Wheat is neither any health food. It contains gluten, is made of GMO crops, is sprayed with pesticides, has high glycemic index and high glycemic load – a health disaster worth avoiding.
5. Soya, another GMO food, full of pesticides. Soya is also bad for the thyroid. Low thyroid slows down the metabolic rate, and increases weight. Soya has been implicated in some cancers due to its ability to mimic estrogen. Soy cultivation destroys our planet.
6. Nuts. These are great as a snack in small quantities, but I found out that there is a large number of people having hidden allergies to nuts. Hidden allergy is not like a peanut allergy, where you get throat closing after eating it. Hidden food allergies can contribute to anything from pain to weight gain to fatigue without giving any clues about it. I found that those praised almonds show are actually very common allergens. Human livers do not do well on large amount of nuts likely due to their high PUFA content. Do you remembers that it is the liver that decides on cholesterol numbers? So maybe eating lots of nuts is just nuts.

For more shocking truth about anti-fat movement and cardiovascular diseases please refer to “The Cholesterol Trap!“. It will give you a very informative perspective on why you should eat your eggs in quantities

No oats for breakfast!

So what do I eat? Great you’ve asked. I am looking forward to my fatty breakfast every morning. It sharpens my memory, keeps my skin soft, and prevents degenerative diseases. My breakfast is made of 3 organic (local farming) egg yolks in organic butter and several slices of farm fed pork bacon (from local farm as well). A strong espresso with sugar goes well with my bacon. I love my satisfying breakfast and I hate lies about lower cholesterol.