No more fear of fat
Ever since the early 90s, I have been deathly afraid of fat. I stopped enjoying cream cheese and bagels for breakfast, painstakingly peeled cheese off slices of pizza, avoided nuts like the plague, and frequently bought Healthy Choice frozen entres. I would watch in horror as my Greek grandmother poured cups and cups of olive oil into her dishes. I cooked with nonstick cookware so as to use less oil.
About 8 months after my first son was born, thanks to twice daily workouts (jogging with him in the jogger in the AM and going to the gym to lift weights in the PM) and nursing, I became quite thin. No longer worried about my figure, I started eating more fat. Nuts, avocados, cups and cups of olive oil. Surprisingly, I didn’t gain any weight. And I felt more satisfied. Even once I stopped nursing and started working out less, I still didn’t gain any weight. I wasn’t depositing fat on my hips and thighs despite eating more fat in a day than I had previously eaten in a week.
I really truly believe that the right fats won’t make you gain weight. They provide great nutrition (i.e. the essential fatty acid omega-3) and satiety. They add flavor and make cooking more fun. In our house, we go through a gallon of olive oil every few months. And eat walnuts daily. And I’m still thinner than I was in college. Everything in moderation. Everything in moderation!
Filed under: Food and Nutrition on November 10th, 2008
Wow, a gallon of olive oil? I guess I can be more liberal when I saute! What do you make often to use so much?
Nice post, btw.
I just looked closer at our tin and it’s 3 liters and a gallon is 3.785 liters. Let’s say we use about one liter per month. One liter is 68 tbsp so we use 2-3 tbsp per day. Here’s how…
-Cooking everything from stir fry to pancakes. All of our cookware is stainless steel or cast-iron. So to avoid sticking, we’re really generous.
-Salad dressing. We make our own salad dressing with it and we eat salad almost every day.
-Soups and tomato sauce. I think our lentil soup recipe calls for 1/3 or 1/2 cup of oil. And we make that frequently. Any recipe that is tomato based tastes really good with lots of olive oil so our lasagnas, eggplant parmeseans, and many of our soups are rich in olive oil.
I read somewhere that you shouldn’t use olive oil at really high temps (like frying) because it loses all nutrional value. I love olive oil for roasting veggies and everything else you listed, but we typically use butter or canola for anything on the stove top.
I have heard similar things Heather. I’ve even heard that at high temps, olive oil breaks down into something more dangerous (I want to say a carcinogen, but this is completely from memory so don’t quote me on it). For really high temps or frying, I usually use canola oil. I have also read that the way the Mediterranean cooks use olive oil is to always saute onions and garlic in it first and the antioxidants in those ingredients offset the breakdown of the olive oil. I just figured this–the Med diet is one of the healthiest in the world and they use olive oil for everything, even frying and high heat cooking.