Dark calories How vegetable oils destroy our health and how we can get it back

Catherine Shanahan

Book - 2024

"In recent years, on the heels of high profile revelations about nutrition gatekeepers and new technologies that are capable of measuring how foods are metabolized in the body, Dr. Cate has been shouting something new from the rooftops. If you are looking for the most powerful driver of the obesity and nearly all disease epidemics afflicting both young and old, you need look no further than the vegetable oils listed as main ingredients on the packages you buy. If you've had trouble losing weight, or experience heartburn, hypoglycemia symptoms, seasonal allergies, asthma, eczema, frequent headaches, or palpitations, just to name a few symptoms, your body may be giving you early warning signs that it's struggling to control the... inflammation induced by seed oils. And that vegetable oil's meteoric rise in our food supply more perfectly parallels the explosion of obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic diseases than any other single variable in the modern diet equation. And it's time to expunge it, for good. Dark Calories is the first book to definitively show that vegetable oil is the defining ingredient in not just junk food but all processed food, from frozen meals, canned soup, pizza, and even your vitamin gummies, and makes the case that eliminating it is the single best thing you can do for your health. Through a narrative account of the speedy rise of the vegetable oil industry, a walk through the science of how it fundamentally alters our cells, and an action plan to help you take your health back into your own hands today, Dr. Cate shows how three factors-a combination of endless advertising sound bites, undisclosed conflicts of interest in research, and the failure of medicine to focus on prevention-have destroyed human health and turned nutrition science into a farce"--

Saved in:
1 copy ordered
Subjects
Published
New York : Hachette Go, an imprint of Hachette Books 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Catherine Shanahan (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
pages cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780306832390
9780306832406
  • The poison in your pantry
  • The all-you-can-eat buffet of chronic disease
  • The metabolic problem doctors can't see
  • Fat bodies, starving brains
  • Fat-phobia and the truth about cholesterol
  • Ancel keys and the dark side of the American heart association
  • The economics of a chronically ill population
  • Reasons for hope
  • How to ditch vegetable oils for good
  • Eating to heal
  • The two-week challenge: meal planning and simple recipes.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Vegetable oils are terrible for one's health, according to this troubling warning. Physician Shanahan (Deep Nutrition) explains that they contain polyunsaturated fatty acids that undergo a chemical transformation when heated during the manufacturing process, creating "brand-new compounds within the oil that... are mildly to extremely toxic." Such toxins can cause oxidative stress, a "cellular imbalance that disrupts everything the cell is trying to do" and leads to chronic inflammation. Shanahan's assertion that vegetable oils are the primary reason why inflammatory diseases have ticked upward in recent decades doesn't quite persuade, as it relies on circumstantial evidence that vegetable oil use has increased over the same period, and she admits that there's relatively little research studying a direct link between vegetable oil and inflammatory disease. Still, readers who want to err on the side of caution and steer clear of the substance will benefit from tips for replacing it with healthier fats. For instance, she recommends substituting butter, ghee, or unrefined coconut oil for vegetable oil; loading up on almonds, avocados, and pecans; and eating meats with low polyunsaturated fat content, such as beef and lamb. Shanahan also lists vegetable oil--free meal ideas, recommending steak, roasted vegetables, and hummus made from olive oil. Though this perhaps overstates vegetable oils' evils, it provides sound guidance on how to reduce one's intake of the stuff. Health enthusiasts will want to take note. (June)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved