One of the most shocking moments for me during my journey with epilepsy wasn’t the day I had my first seizure. It was the day I realized that I did this to my body. I am the reason that my brain isn’t functioning correctly. I am the reason that my hormones are imbalanced. I chose to eat foods that caused nutritional deficiencies, digestion issues, and a long list of many other problems. Before I was diagnosed, I did not read ingredient labels, I did eat processed foods on a daily basis, and I believed the lie that food companies and government organizations wouldn’t put anything harmful into the food products I was consuming. I involuntarily depleted my health until my body reached a point where it literally could not handle it any longer, and it is all because I did not understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy ingredients.

Considering the fact that I could have prevented the medical issues I struggle with right now is a difficult pill to swallow, but I would do it all over again for the knowledge I have gained through my personal experiences. I have been able to apply this knowledge in the way I work to overcome my own medical dilemmas, but the real icing on the cake is being able to share this knowledge with others. It is also proof of how there is always a bright side to every situation, including being diagnosed with a serious medical condition.

Take the concept of Saturated Fat, for example. Numerous people still believe this ingredient, and the foods containing it, to be unhealthy junk foods that will eventually kill you. However, despite the protests of major food companies, commercial diet regimens, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Saturated Fats never have and never will be as black and white as the reputation the afore mentioned sources have worked so hard to build for this ingredient.

The most important thing to understand about Fats and their presence in our food is that not all Fats are bad. There are many different types of fats found in foods and I’m going to help you distinguish between the good fats and the bad fats.

Too many people make the mistake of cutting all fats out of their diet completely. The food pyramid exists for a reason and it is because the human body needs a little bit of every category in order to be healthy and balanced. This includes sugar! Did you know that foods with gluten and sugar (foods supposedly containing dangerous amounts of saturated fats) actually bind to the heavy metals in your body, particularly your cells, and chelate them out through your pores, stool, and urine? This is not an open invitation to go out and buy all of the cookies, donuts, and twinkies that your heart desires. Homemade foods containing gluten and sugar are always the best sources. Learn more about the risks of cutting gluten and sugar out of your diet completely here: (The GAPS DIET ARTICLE)

On government health websites, you will typically be advised to eat as little saturated fats as possible because of the supposed “link” that has been found between saturated fats, high cholesterol, and heart disease. As advertised by most government groups, this conclusion might seem like a logical one. However, on paper, we find that this theory actually has a few holes in it. First of all, let’s take a look at cholesterol and its function in the body…the purpose of cholesterol is to fight infection in the human body.

***Side Note: A little insight from Healthline should help clarify the function of Cholesterol…“Cholesterol is a waxy substance that circulates in your blood. Your body uses it to create cells, hormones, and Vitamin D. Your liver creates all the cholesterol you need from fats in your diet.

Cholesterol doesn’t dissolve in the blood. Instead, it bonds to carriers called lipoproteins, which transport it between cells. Lipoproteins are made up of fat on the inside and protein on the outside.”

The more infection present in the body, the more cholesterol will be required to help fight it. So, when people begin taking medications to lower their cholesterol, they aren’t reducing their odds of getting heart disease, they’re increasing their odds because they are taking away their body’s defense system known as “Cholesterol.”

These people shouldn’t be focusing on their cholesterol levels being too high or too low, they should be concerned about the reasons behind their body’s need to create more cholesterol. The focus needs to be on the infection that is clearly present inside the person’s body. Realistically, you want that cholesterol present while you work to figure out the sources of the problem so that your heart and other organs will be protected. I know that Cholesterol isn’t typically advertised as a “protectant” component inside the human body, but it is protecting you by sending you a warning sign. Cholesterol isn’t the enemy here, it is your best defense against unwanted antibodies and toxins that are present within your body and possibly contributing to the infection.

Please do not think that Cholesterol levels should be ignored based upon this information. On the contrary, you should pay more attention to these levels. However, I believe it would be beneficial for one to read between the lines and strive to understand what the true source of his or her high cholesterol levels may be before using pharmaceuticals as a solution to the problem. The human body has a lot to tell a person if he or she is willing to listen. It is imperative that we pay attention to the red flags sent by our bodies so that we can treat the source of the issue, not just the symptoms.

I have a special type of epilepsy that is caused by a hormone imbalance in my body. This should be an incredibly important piece of information for doctors when they are given the task of figuring out my case, but I am yet to find a neurologist who actually takes this detail into consideration when determining my treatment plan. For some reason, every doctor chooses to ignore the source of my issue and focuses instead on curing my symptoms.

Every single neurologist I have visited whether it is the crème de la crème of neurologists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, or my local neurologist here in California…all refuse to even try and treat the source of my problem. Ultimately, these doctors want my seizures to stop, same as me, but they never seem to understand that if the source continues to exist the symptoms will continue to exist as well. It doesn’t matter how much medication they prescribe, my body will never be free of the issue until the cause is addressed first.

This is also the case for those of you dealing with high cholesterol issues. You can take medication that might “lower” these levels, but this doesn’t solve the problem….it simply gives you inaccurate data on the inner-workings of your body. You want to work to lower those levels naturally, not synthetically. Cholesterol levels are one example of your body’s way of communicating to you from the inside out. In this case, it is bringing to your attention the presence of a red-flag situation happening somewhere in your body without your knowledge. Remember, listen to your body even if it doesn’t have much to say because there is always an explanation for all of the inner- and outer-workings that take place. Literally every single one! So be sure to keep an open mind and an open ear.

Before moving on from Cholesterol it is also important to keep in mind that “There are two main types of cholesterol carried by different types of lipoproteins. Low-density Lipoproteins (LDL) are sometimes called “bad” cholesterol. High levels of LDL cholesterol can build up in your arteries, causing heart disease.

High-density Lipoproteins (HDL) are referred to as “good” cholesterol. HDL cholesterol carries cholesterol from other parts of your body back to the liver. Your liver then processes the cholesterol out of your body. It’s important to have healthy levels of both types of cholesterol” (Healthline.com).

***Here’s a little food for thought you won’t find on a government health site: Lowering your cholesterol actually increases your risk of heart disease.

The truth is, a theory was made in 1957 about saturated fats and cholesterol, not a factually-based hypothesis, but the world chose to view it as the latter. This theory is known as the Diet-Heart Hypothesis. “The traditional diet-heart hypothesis predicts that the serum cholesterol lowering effects of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oil rich in linoleic acid will diminish deposition of cholesterol in the arterial wall, slow progression of atherosclerosis, reduce coronary heart disease events, and improve survival” (bmj.com). It is important for everyone to understand that “at the time, this was not based on any experimental evidence in humans. This hypothesis was based on assumptions, observational data, and animal studies. The diet-heart hypothesis then turned into public policy in 1977, before it was ever proven to be true” (Healthline.com).

The creator of this idea, Dr. Ancel Keys, formulated an assumption that led him to become heavily involved in the human condition. Personally, I find this to be a strange direction for someone who began his career as a zoologist. An expert in animals has not only taken it upon himself to supposedly “improve” human life, but he also went about this endeavor in all the wrong ways.

So, naturally, society labeled him an expert, gave him the title “Mr. Cholesterol” out of their adoration for him, and put his face on the cover of Time Magazine.

According to Dr. Cate Shanahan, “Keys based his claim that saturated fat increases blood cholesterol on the experiments he’d done. But the experiments were not performed using real foods rich in saturated fat. His experiments used saturated fats that had been artificially created from vegetable oils using a process called hydrogenation. Hydrogenated vegetable oils contain not just saturated fat but also trans fat and a whole host of other unnatural molecules. Trans fat does indeed raise blood cholesterol, as well as lead to heart attack and strokes, and has been since shown to be so unhealthy cities like Manhattan and San Francisco have outlawed its use in restaurants. So when Ancel Keys told doctors his experiments showed that saturated fats raise cholesterol, they thought he used butter. He actually used margarine. Keys fooled doctors using the term ‘hydrogenated fats.’ He rightly guessed nobody would bother to look up either his research or the meaning of the word. 60 years later, most doctors are still confused” (Dr. Cate Shanahan).

Somehow, the process of hydrogenation became interchangeable with the process of saturation in the eyes of Keys despite their monumental differences. Clearly, a lot of assumptions were made about Keys’ experiments and not a lot of clarification was provided. When the fuss about saturated fats began (thanks to Keys), Keys was NOT using saturated fats in his experiments, he was using hydrogenated fats (a synthetically derived form of fat), but reporting data on the former. Therefore, his data was misleading and just plain untrue about common saturated fats like butter.

The most interesting observation (and lie) made by Keys is that health conditions such as heart attacks and high cholesterol became more common when saturated fats increased in the daily diets of the average Joe. I refer to this statement as interesting because the fact of the matter is that saturated fats are not what increased in the diets of everyday people…it was actually hydrogenated fats that increased, but no one took the time to make the distinction between the two.

Let me be one of the few to actually point out the fact that regular butter (from a cow) and margarine (synthetically derived) are NOT the same thing! Butter has an ingredient label composed of real food ingredients whereas margarine is filled with synthetic chemicals. The effect these two foods have on the human body are as different as night and day.

One provides nutrients derived from real food sources, like animals, whereas the other is derived from chemical ingredients found in a lab. It has been proven that synthetic foods can warp your cells and disrupt your bodily function because your body is not meant to process synthetically derived ingredients. There is no knowledge of what to do with the chemicals it does receive, which ultimately leads to an interruption in function.

“Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Ancel Keys designed a series of highly influential experiments that changed the course of American dietary history. Before Keys, Americans enjoyed traditional foods like butter, eggs, and bacon without worrying about their health. After Keys made the cover of Time magazine on January 13, 1961, the American public was introduced to the idea that saturated fats were clogging their arteries, and that idea ultimately led to a sea of change in the foods we eat. Real foods would be increasingly replaced by processed, and the era of obesity and chronic disease would begin” (Dr. Cate Shanahan).

Once this idea was introduced, people ran with it! This is evident in the decrease in consumption of foods such as butter and lard and the increase in margarine and shortening (both made from hydrogenated vegetables oils). As a community we want to be healthier. This is evident in our actions, post-Ancel Keys hypothesis. He proposed an idea as fact and the world listened to what he had to say. The major issue here is that millions of people were turned off of nutritionally-rich foods and turned on to synthetic, nutritionally-deficient foods instead.

“This diet-heart paradigm is supported by evidence from randomized controlled trials showing that replacement of saturated fat with linoleic acid lowers serum total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein and by observational evidence linking serum cholesterol to coronary heart disease events and deaths. Despite these compelling relations, no randomized controlled trial has shown that replacement of saturated fat with linoleic acid significantly reduces coronary heart disease events or deaths” (bmj.com).

If major food companies, commercial diet regimens, and billion dollar corporations, as well as the FDA, put the same amount of effort into making healthy food products as  they always seem to put into convincing us of believing their false propaganda, we might not be in the health epidemic we currently find ourselves. I’ll go one crazy step further and suggest that we might even have healthy food products worthy of consuming.

Right now, there are few commercial food products that aren’t considered “seizure triggers” in my book. What I mean by this term is that few commercially produced food products currently exist that won’t cause a seizure in my body when I consume them. Many of these commercial products contain synthetic ingredients that affect the human brain, the way it functions, and its ability to filter the energy created by your brain waves. If too much energy becomes built up, your brain has no other choice but to dispose of this energy through a short burst of rapid brain waves…scientifically known as a seizure.

As you can imagine, the limitations I face when it comes to food make grocery shopping quite the challenge. For this very reason, I usually skip the commercial food aisles altogether and shop for baking ingredients, such as flour, salt, sugar, fruits, vegetables, etc. Instead of buying cookies at the grocery store, I bake my own from scratch. The best part? I know every single ingredient that has gone into making the final product. No hidden preservatives, no tricky names on the ingredient label that say one thing, but are actually code for another ingredient entirely, and everything is organic (well, most of the time)! This may seem like too much work for some people, but for those of you wanting to make “clean eating” a priority in your life, this lifestyle really isn’t so difficult to adopt.

Plus, it’s only February! If you couldn’t think of a New Year’s Resolution in January, now you have one. It is never too late to apply some positive change to your life and your diet makes for a great starting point! In order to do this successfully, it is very important to understand what is truly good for the human body and what is truly bad regardless of what is advertised by the FDA or marketing propaganda from individual food companies. I have found that the most accurate information is not found in popular hearsay, but my own research, which is why I take the time to research everything before I eat it.

Many mainstream sources, such as the American Heart Association (AHA), claim that all saturated fats are bad. Period. Here is their take on the situation: “Eating foods that contain saturated fats raises the level of cholesterol in your blood. High levels of LDL Cholesterol in your blood increase your risk of heart disease and stroke” (AHA, heart.org) This all sounds very convincing, especially when they use confusing scientific terms like “LDL Cholesterol”. Terms the organization is probably hoping we do not know the meaning of, so that they can continue to pull the wool over our eyes before we understand as well as they do, what a load of crap the majority of everything they endorse truly is!

Once again, we see the myth that cholesterol is the danger here. The AHA is advertising that your body’s defense system is the issue when it comes to keeping your body healthy…You may be asking yourself, “How does that make any sense???” The answer is that IT DOESN’T! The AHA wants to blame cholesterol for the heart problems people are experiencing nowadays and they actively strive to get rid of it. So why are they always completely shocked when people continue to struggle with the state of their health? Well, when you remove the defense system (Cholesterol) from the body, you remove the protection a person’s heart needs to fight off existing inflammation or infection.

This is the equivalency of removing the alarm system from within your home with the purpose of better “protecting” it and then being shocked when a break-in occurs. Without the alarm system, how are you even supposed to be aware of the presence of an intruder so that you can defend yourself?

Your cholesterol is your guide to understanding your current state of health, and whether or not you should be doing something to correct a potential problem. Cholesterol is your body’s alarm system, the inflammation, infection, disease, etc. is the intruder. The AHA wants you to ignore the inflammation and focus solely on your cholesterol, the alarm system…I don’t want you to ignore either!

I actually recommend you pay close attention to your cholesterol so that you may focus on treating any inflammation when present. It is all about finding that happy medium in the amount of attention you devote to your body, so that you don’t miss the red flags that components such as Cholesterol are designed to provide.

The input of saturated fats will feed your body, your whole body and the organs functioning within your body. And, as is the case with many ingredients, there are both healthy and unhealthy foods containing saturated fats. This part is crucial for you when it comes to achieving that goal of “clean eating” because it is the choices you make for yourself that will determine whether your saturated fats are healthy or unhealthy.

The AHA wants you to cut saturated fats out of your diet altogether, but I want you to continue consuming saturated fats in a more selective manner. Just because a food contains saturated fats doesn’t mean it is automatically unhealthy, but it also doesn’t mean that every ingredient is healthy either. Though saturated fats can be very beneficial for your body, make sure to examine the whole ingredient label before determining the quality of the product and remember, everything in moderation.

Fats have been broken up into three categories: Saturated, Monounsaturated, and Polyunsaturated fats. Trans fats also exist, but are found to be a smaller category not worth mentioning by the so-called “experts,” despite the fact that these are the least healthy fats to consume and are also found in many commercially produced foods.

You see, when eaten correctly, Saturated Fats can be incredibly beneficial for the human body. These “Fats” will actually provide energy to your entire body and they will support proper function by contributing nutrients to various organs, systems, and cells. Did you think Saturated Fats are only found in greasy snack foods such as potato chips? It wouldn’t surprise me if you have made this common mistake. I know I certainly did before I was diagnosed with epilepsy!

It was only after my change in diet that I discovered Saturated Fats had been falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit. The preconceived notion that this notoriously unhealthy ingredient was a fabricated and synthetic additive was finally abolished once I learned the truth…Saturated fat is actually a naturally occurring component in foods. For example, did you know that avocados are actually one of the best sources of saturated fats? Would you consider an avocado unhealthy? How about coconut oil, one of the healthiest oils on the planet and a natural source of saturated fats? No, I didn’t think so. Yet we don’t hear from the FDA or commercial food companies to stop eating these foods. While this observation may seem like evidence of something “fishy” taking place, I commend you for taking notice because there most certainly is! And it’s called the double standard upheld by the majority of organizations involved in the commercial food industry.

So, please take a moment to learn a little bit more about how to incorporate rather than remove these saturated fats in your diet in order to improve your total-body health. We are told by society to avoid saturated fats if we want to preserve our heart health. However, they fail to mention the effect this diet choice could be having on the rest of your body, especially your brain.

“Your brain is 60 per cent fat. As the human brain develops in the womb and in childhood, it needs a constant fatty acid supply to support the growth of nerve cells (neurons). Even the adult brain needs fat to maintain the membranes and myelin sheaths surrounding these cells—all 86 billion of them—and in comparison to the protein components of neurons, the fatty components need to be replaced more regularly. The myelin sheath is a fatty insulating layer that speeds transmission of nerve impulses along neurons. It is produced by ogliodendrocytes in the central nervous system and Schwann cells elsewhere.

Without myelin, our nervous systems couldn’t function properly. In multiple sclerosis, people gradually lose the myelin in parts of their brain, which causes problems with movement, sight and thinking. In the 1990s, scientists found that people with multiple sclerosis had very low levels of certain fatty acids in their red blood cells and plasma” (Big Picture Education).

I am always amazed when I learn about something like the Myelin Sheath, it is such a small component of the human body in size, but when measured by importance it is monumental. The degradation of the myelin sheath layer has been linked to epilepsy, as well. It certainly got me thinking about my lifestyle and the importance of maintaining a healthy myelin sheath, something I hadn’t even heard of before I began experiencing seizures. And though vitamin supplements might seem like the best option for achieving this goal, food sources are actually preferable because they are natural and, therefore, more easily absorbed.

After all, you have to eat to maintain your bodily function so you might as well maintain healthy bodily functions, right? There are three main types of fat that human beings consume. Despite evidence that fats are not as detrimental as researchers, such as Ancel Keys, have led us to believe, major organizations continue to recommend excluding fats from our diet entirely.

This is part of the reason why silly anecdotes, such as the notion of skinless chicken being healthier than chicken with the skin, have become common knowledge for most Americans. I call this statement silly because the skin is actually where the most vitamins and nutrients are found in a chicken. In actuality, we should be avoiding the skinless chicken and choosing chicken with the skin, so that we get the naturally occurring nutrients found in their skin! Here’s a shocker for you: maybe the parts of certain animals that we consider “fatty” or “unhealthy” are actually the most nutritionally-rich areas! I’ve had a pretty strict diet for the past 7 years now and if there’s one thing I’ve learned to adopt into my natural behavior, it’s to question everything! You can’t always trust those big-wig health companies. Doing your own research is key to building a truly healthy diet regimen.

As I mentioned earlier, there are three different types of fats found in the foods some of us consume on a daily basis. They are known as Saturated Fats, Monounsaturated Fats, and Polyunsaturated Fats. Saturated Fats have become known as the taboo fat because this type of fat can be found in a multitude of unhealthy commercial food products. However, Saturated Fats are also found in healthy foods such as radishes, cream, butter, milk, and coconut oil (just to name a few). But no one ever seems to advertise this fact! Many times, people will label ALL fried foods as unhealthy because of the universal opinion shared by many people around the globe. What these people don’t realize is that the cooking style isn’t what’s making these foods unhealthy, the cooking oils are the bad guys here!

The truth is, you can switch out that vegetable oil, palm kernel oil, soybean oil, or any other kind of synthetic cooking oil for a healthier option like coconut oil. By doing so, you’re making the switch to a healthier lifestyle! Coconut Oil is naturally derived from the edible white flesh and clear liquid found inside the coconut fruit shell. No additives, no preservatives, and no synthetic ingredients. I prefer to use organic companies such as Tropical Traditions for my source of coconut oil because I know they are grown with the utmost care and attention. This company is also an excellent source for flavored and unflavored coconut oils. You are definitely going to want the unflavored coconut oil when making foods such as French fries, fried chicken, and baked garlic green beans.

However, the flavored coconut oil is excellent in hot teas! I drink a Ginger-Honey-Coconut Tea with breakfast and it has become an incredibly convenient way to consume a tablespoon of coconut oil each morning! It is always good to double-check your source for legitimate Saturated Fat components before consuming (you don’t want anything synthetic sneaking its way into your healthy meal). You just might find that these “fats” will provide you with more of a brain boost than that supposedly healthier granola bar!

Monounsaturated Fats are actually a very highly underrated fat component in our diets because they do provide a helping hand in the bodily functions that keep us healthy. A key characteristic of monounsaturated fats is their anti-inflammatory nature. These types of fats actually fight infection and inflammation within the human body in order to protect your heart health and total-body function. Also, these fats work to lower your bodily inflammation, which also means these fats are working to lower your cholesterol levels back to a healthy level, as well. If no inflammation in your body exists, your cholesterol levels will not be raised to a level of concern. This is yet another reason why you should eat more avocados on a daily basis! Avocados are probably the most famous food containing monounsaturated fats. Once again, everything I recommend should be consumed in moderation. If you gorge yourself on anything it is considered unhealthy for your body! Keep this in mind!

Lastly, we have Polyunsaturated fats. This fat is found in eggs, fish, certain nuts, cooking oils, and dairy products. It one of the many reasons why fish oils have become a common vitamin supplement in today’s market. Polyunsaturated fats are a bit tricky because they are found in foods such as Canola Oil and recommended as a good cooking substitute for butter, however, this is untrue. When consumed in healthy amounts, butter will be incredibly healthy for your heart, your brain, and the long-term function of your body. Too often, foods like butter are blamed for our sky-rocketing rates of obesity, especially in children. However, no one ever points out that any food can be fattening if the portions are too large. Though I believe ingredients labels should always be reviewed before purchasing a product, mainstream companies need to address the issue of portion control rather than trying to phase healthy foods like butter completely out of our diets and replacing it with an unhealthy synthetic product like margarine.

Foods Containing Saturated Fats:

– Cheeses

– Milk

– Cream (Heavy Whipping Cream, Whipped Cream, Ice Cream, etc.)

– Butter

– Ghee

– Coconut Oil

– Mayonnaise

– Beef (esp. fatty meat)

– Lamb

– Pork (bacon is particularly good)

– Baked Goods

Foods Containing Monounsaturated Fats (List courtesy of Dr. Axe):

– Olives

– Extra Virgin Olive Oil

– Avocados

– Almonds

– Peanuts

– Cashews

– Eggs

– Red Meat

– Tea Seed Oil

Foods Containing Polyunsaturated Fats (List courtesy of Medline Plus):

– Walnuts

– Sunflower Seeds

– Flax Seeds or Flax Oil

– Fish (Salmon, Mackeral, Herring, Albacore Tuna, & Trout)

– Cooking Oils (careful with these because unhealthy oils such as Corn, Soybean, Safflower, and Sunflower are recommended sources of Polyunsaturated Fats, but should never be consumed because of their poor quality ingredients…Stick with oils such as Coconut, Almond, and Olive instead, they are much healthier!)

You will notice in each of these lists some foods that our society considers to be “unhealthy” and recommends (for humanity’s sake, of course) to exclude each from every person’s diet. However, I have found the true sign of a healthy product does not lie in the amount of fats contained in a product, it lies in the ingredient label. You can have a product that is completely free from any type of fat, but the ingredient label is full to the brim with synthetic ingredients that have only negative effects on the human body. Society would say this is a healthy product because the fat levels read zero, but is such a product actually healthy? No, it isn’t! You have to dig deeper into the content of a product or else you’ll end up thinking Twinkies are a healthy snack for you or your children to consume.

Yes, the label on the side of a Twinkies box does read “0” when it comes to the amount of fat in the product. However, the first eight ingredients of this product’s label are as follows: Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour, Water, Sugar, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil and/or Animal Shortening (Soybean, Cottonseed and/or Canola Oil, Beef Fat), Whole Eggs, Dextrose. Ingredient Label courtesy of Fooducate.

Does that sound like a healthy product to you? I’m sorry, but it is impossible for me to consider a product containing more synthetic than natural ingredients as “healthy.” I’m sorry to all of the Twinkie lovers out there, but just say “No” the next time you are tempted. Seriously!

Bottom Line: You cannot determine a product’s quality by the reported levels of sugar, fat, calories, or cholesterol. The ingredient label is where all the information resides that will actually help you to determine if a product is good or bad. Don’t be fooled.

Be sure to check out Seize the Day Blog for a healthy recipe (packed full of Saturated Fats) for Classic-Style French Fries!!!

If you prefer Sweet Potato Fries, no problem! Just click here and bon appétit!

Medical Disclaimer:

The information posted on Seize the Day Blog, including but not limited to, articles, images, recipes, text and other material are shared for informational purposes only. None of the writings should be looked upon as advice meant to replace that of an actual medical professional. If you suspect you have a serious medical condition you should seek help from a healthcare professional immediately. Please be aware that the author of this website is posting information simply to inform NOT to recommend others about health-related topics. Before following any information (i.e. undertaking a new healthcare or diet routine) found here on Seize the Day Blog, you should always consult a medical professional first. Please be sure to never disregard any medicinal advice because of something you have read on this website.

Sources:

American Heart Association (AHA): http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/FatsAndOils/Fats101/Saturated-Fats_UCM_301110_Article.jsp#.WoC79CO-Jn5

Anne Guillot: http://www.anneshealthykitchen.com/top-30-foods-high-in-polyunsaturated-fat/

Big Picture Education: https://bigpictureeducation.com/fat-brain

BMJ: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1246

Cate Shanahan: http://drcate.com/what-every-doctor-should-know-about-ancel-keys-experiments/

Dr. Axe: https://draxe.com/monounsaturated-fat/

Dr. Deborah MD: http://www.drdeborahmd.com/56-years-testing-diet-heart-hypothesis

Fitness Magazine: https://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/healthy-eating/nutrition/good-and-bad-fats/

Fooducate: https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=9C3C44C0-EAAE-11E1-83D2-1231381BA074

Greatist: https://greatist.com/health/saturated-fat-healthy

Harvard School of Public Health: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/top-food-sources-of-saturated-fat-in-the-us/

Healthline (Cholesterol): https://www.healthline.com/health/ldl-cholesterol

Healthline (Saturated Fats): https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/saturated-fat-good-or-bad

Healthy Eating / SF Gate: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/monounsaturated-fat-vs-polyunsaturated-fat-6898.html

Healthy Food Guide: http://www.healthyfood.co.uk/article/different-types-of-fat-explained/

Irish Institute of Health and Nutrition (IINH): https://www.iinh.net/all-about-carbohydrates/

MedlinePlus.gov: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000747.htm

Myelin Sheath: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/function-b12-production-myelin-8022.html

World’s Healthiest Foods: http://whfoods.org