June 13, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode of Crunchy Stewardship, cousins Katie Jones and Chrissy Rombach delve into the controversial topic of seed oils. The hosts clarify what seed oils are, their chemical properties, and the health implications of consuming them. They discuss the history and political landscape that led to the widespread use of seed oils and contrast them with more stable, healthier fats like butter, tallow, and coconut oil. The episode provides practical advice on choosing and using healthier oils, the significance of cold-pressed oils, and tips for integrating these into daily life. Chrissy and Katie also share personal anecdotes, book recommendations, and emphasize the importance of making informed, incremental changes to improve overall health and honor God.
Episode Takeaway:
Understanding the historical and chemical differences between traditional saturated fats and modern seed oils reveals how our dietary recommendations have been fundamentally flipped, impacting our health and highlighting the importance of choosing stable, natural fats for optimal wellness.
Links & Things Mentioned in This Episode:
- Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats https://amzn.to/3SLKo4b
Types of Good Oils/Fats
- Pure Tallow
- Avocado Oil
- Olive Oil
- Coconut Oil
- Ghee
- Almond Oil
- Sesame Oil
Organic & gold pressed are BEST
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship
00:59 Introduction to Seed Oils
02:07 Understanding Unsaturated Fats
07:17 The History and Politics of Seed Oils
09:25 Health Impacts of Seed Oils
21:57 Choosing the Right Oils for Cooking
26:46 Smoke Point of Fats and Oils
32:31 Practical Tips for Healthier Choices
38:28 Final Thoughts and Resources
Connect With Us:
Join Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crunchychristianmama
Follow us on Instagram @crunchystewardship
FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Katie (00:00):
Hey, and welcome to Crunchy Stewardship.
My name is Katie Jones.
Chrissy (00:03):
And my name is Chrissy Rombach.
We are two cousins who arepassionate about learning and
sharing knowledge to equipothers to steward their
spiritual, mental, emotional,financial, and physical health
in order to honor God in everyaspect of their lives.
Katie (00:19):
In this podcast, we are taking a deep dive into what it
means to steward our lives asGod originally intended for us.
With the resources that God hasgiven us, we will look at topics
like food, medicine, finances,mental health, and lots more
through a natural lens and witha biblical foundation.
Chrissy (00:40):
But before we get started, if you've been enjoying
our episode, make sure you likeand subscribe to us and leave a
five star rating.
This helps other people find ourshow in the future.
And, if you're not alreadysigned up for our weekly
newsletter, go and take a momentand do that by clicking the link
in the show notes.
Katie (00:59):
In today's episode, we are switching gears a little
bit.
We recently talked aboutessential oils, and now we are
going to look at seed oils.
Now seed oils get a very badwrap today.
I think a lot of us kind of knowseed oils as this like hot
(01:22):
button topic and we know thatit's something that we should be
looking out for.
For me, actually, I had beenhearing this a ton, like, don't
eat seed oils.
If you see seed oils in yourfoods, avoid it.
But I literally think probablylike four months ago, I didn't
(01:43):
actually know what seed oilswere and I was like, well, okay,
I don't see anything oningredients list that says a
seed oil specifically.
So I was kind of confusedexactly what it meant when
people said seed oils.
So maybe Chrissy, you can helpclear it up for those of us who
(02:03):
are a little unsure about whatseed oils actually are.
Chrissy (02:07):
Yeah, so seed oils, they can be a little bit sneaky
sometimes because like you said,it's not specifically mentioned
in the ingredients list.
Seed oil.
Now conveniently some seed oils.
Do technically say seed in thecase of sunflower seed oil or
safflower seed oil or grape seedoil.
(02:29):
Those very specifically say thiskind of seed oil.
But other seed oils likevegetable oil and canola oil, do
not say that.
Now, what characterizes a seedoil as such is its chemical
properties of being anunsaturated fat.
Now.
Unsaturated fat essentiallymeans that in the chemical
(02:52):
compound of the oil, it hassome, I don't know how to say
this specifically.
Katie (03:01):
Well, so I was reading about this in my wonderful book,
which we will add a link tobecause I love this book
already.
It's called NourishingTraditions, the Cookbook that
Challenges Politically CorrectNutrition, and the Diet
Dictocrats, and
Chrissy (03:18):
Ooh.
Katie (03:18):
I actually really like it.
It's kind of like a super nerdycookbook that brings in science
and chemistry with politics andthen nutrition, and it's kind of
like mind blowing the way thatthey help you understand like
how we got to the place thatwe're at with things like seed
oils and just general nutritionand food and yeah, she was
(03:39):
talking about thepolyunsaturated fats that have.
This is back to chemistry class,right?
So you think about all of theconnecting molecules when you
would do like carbon, carbon,carbon and do the CCCC or
whatever, is it hydrogen?
I don't even remember.
H, H, HH.
And then you'd have the lines,either the double bond with the
two lines or the single linethat has a single bond.
(04:00):
And whenever they have thedouble bond, it's like when
there is a kink in the strand,and here I am on our video.
I, and you guys can't see thisright now as I'm describing it,
but there's a little teepee overmy head as I'm like, there's a
kink in the strand and I'm onlyshowing Chrissy
Chrissy (04:17):
Just creating a crown.
Katie (04:18):
Anyway, it's, it's one of those things that you, you
really don't need to know the,specifics of it, but it's, I'll
let Chrissy kind of keep goingwith it like what that means,
when there's these spaces andkinks in the, the chemical
strands of things.
Chrissy, you wanna take it away?
Chrissy (04:33):
So essentially, these unsaturated fats are missing
pieces of the puzzle, whichcauses them to be very reactive
and they're unstable, so they'remore likely to bind to other
compounds, and because of that,it can cause a lot of problems
within our body.
They bind to other nutrientswithin our digestive system and
(04:56):
can actually prevent us frombeing able to absorb those
nutrients well.
Whereas with saturated fats,like animal fats such as, butter
or tallow, those are saturatedand so they're very stable,
especially at high temperatures.
And so.
They don't try to bind withthose other nutrients within our
(05:17):
digestive system, which gives usthe ability to continue to
absorb all of the nutrients thatwe've eaten effectively.
Katie (05:25):
Just last night when I was reading this book, they were
talking about the saturated fatsand how they help us to absorb
the fat soluble vitamins.
Um, Especially things likevitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K,
and vitamin E.
And like you said, Chrissy, whenyou have these other
polyunsaturated oils, which theygo rancid very quickly, and
(05:50):
especially when they are exposedto high heat.
And so they, they don't allowour bodies to actually absorb
these vitamins and minerals andeverything very effectively.
But, you know, so you thinkabout something like skim milk
that's been pasteurized.
It's literally like there is nofat in this milk, and we've been
(06:13):
taught that skim milk issupposedly the healthier option,
but it's really not healthybecause they've, they've
stripped out a lot of the goodstuff and it's not helping our
body to absorb things that wouldbe good in the milk as well as
like with other foods.
And so we actually need likehigher fat contents in things
like our milk and, you know,cooking oils, so butter or
(06:37):
tallow or even like eating thefat on meat.
I used to avoid that more for atexture thing, but now I'm like,
oh, wow.
This is actually reallybeneficial because it helps to
keep our brains growingeffectively and our bodies
taking in all the vitamins andbeing able to absorb them and
use them properly.
And I just, I don't know.
(06:57):
Fat has always been made out tobe this like terrible culprit.
And I actually, in this book,again, it kind of goes through a
lot of the politics and historyof like, how did we get here?
Because clearly when you, whenyou look at stuff like this,
you're like.
Well, seed oils are clearly sobad for us and they're
destroying our health.
Like how did we get to thispoint?
(07:17):
And, I also read some otherstuff that was outside of this
book, but interestingly enough,like back in, I think World War
II Canada was actuallycontracted to make a ton of
canola oil in order for the oilto be used in machines for war,
right?
So like to oil up and grease updifferent machines and things.
(07:37):
Well, after the war was over,they now had this abundance of
canola oil and they're like,what do we do with it?
And they're like, let's put itin our foods.
And in some ways they're like,okay, we don't want to waste
this resource.
But they did know that it wasn'treally great for us.
And they had studies and thisbook, that I've been reading,
the Nourishing Traditions, onekind of talks about how they hid
(08:01):
a lot of the actual evidencethat shows that seed oils are
bad for us.
And they tried to cover it upwith saying that saturated fats,
so the, more natural fats thatwe see from, animals, especially
that those were the culprits forhigh cholesterol and all these
things.
And I did see that when you havefats, so like when you eat
(08:24):
butter, your cholesterol willtake a small spike like right
when you have it, but then itactually evens out and then over
time these saturated fatsactually help your cholesterol
to lower.
Whereas on the opposite side,seed oils make your cholesterol
spike and get way outta control.
And so again, it's just like,it's so crazy how.
(08:46):
We've kind of flipped the scriptso badly because people wanna
make money off this kind ofstuff.
Chrissy (08:52):
Yeah.
Another thing that I learnedinterestingly enough is um,
around the end of World War II,just like you were saying, when
they had this abundance ofcanola oil.
That's about the same time thatthe American Heart Association
presented their healthrecommendations of using
margarine and unsaturated fatslike canola oil and vegetable
(09:16):
oil and low fat foods as opposedto these animal fats with butter
and, tallow and things likethat.
And right around that time, assoon as the American Heart
Association made thoserecommendations, the rate of
heart disease in our nationskyrocketed.
You know, like in the twenties,it was unheard of for somebody
(09:40):
to die of a heart attack becausethey just didn't have heart
attacks.
People were eating eggs, butter,and tallow on a daily basis, and
heart attacks were.
Not really a thing until afterWorld War II, when the American
Heart Association startedrecommending these low fat foods
using polyunsaturated fatsinstead of the saturated fats.
(10:03):
That's also when we see thoseheart attacks increasing heart
disease increasing, and the truehealth of our country really
took a turn for the worst atthat point when we started
seeing these unsaturated fatsin, our grocery stores.
And one thing to think about,you know in terms of like the
consumer looking to buysomething that tastes good.
(10:26):
Fat tastes good.
Us as humans are predisposed tohave a desire for fat.
It's part of our survivalinstincts because fat gives us
long-term energy stores, and soback in the time periods when we
didn't have an abundance of foodand humans regularly went
(10:47):
through periods of forcedfasting during famines and
things like that, they werereliant upon their fat stores.
And so, when food was readilyavailable, they were predisposed
to desire fatty foods, which westill have that predisposition.
It's just that, especially herein America, we don't have the
(11:10):
issue of famine causing problemsunless we're talking about the
bird flu and eggs right now.
But that's a different story.
And so, the fat also, gives thefood more flavor.
And when the American HeartAssociation recommended to take
out these saturated fats and useunsaturated fats, which are more
(11:31):
in the form of oil andmargarine.
I don't know if you've ever likehad a spoonful of butter versus
a spoonful of margarine
Katie (11:38):
So different.
Chrissy (11:38):
Margarine's disgust.
It's disgusting.
It tastes like cardboard.
And so unfortunately that that'swhat happens when you take the
fat out of food.
It leaves it with very littleflavor.
And so in order to combat that,obviously the consumer's not
gonna buy something that tastesbad.
The food production companiesactually added sugar into the
(12:03):
foods in order to make themtaste better so that consumers
would actually buy the low fatproducts.
And we have learned now that,blood sugar spikes from that
sugar and therefore insulinspikes from the blood sugar
spikes have continued to lead toan increase in heart disease,
(12:23):
high cholesterol, high bloodpressure, dementia, even.
Studies have shown thatincreased levels of insulin in
the body from these increasedsugar intake is one of the
reasons that we have dementia somuch on the rise right now.
And so I think it's reallyimportant to kind of take a step
back and look at the history of.
(12:44):
Okay, so this, all thesepolitical agendas is what got us
to this place to begin with.
And so how can I get back toeating food how God created it.
You know, if you look at thefood that God gave Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden, they hadplants and they had animals, and
(13:05):
that
Katie (13:06):
Mm-hmm.
Chrissy (13:06):
is about it.
You don't see refined sugaranywhere in there.
And so if we bring our dietsback to fruits, vegetables, and
meat and using animal derivedfats in order to cook our food,
then we are going to decreasethose glucose levels in our
(13:26):
body, decrease those insulinlevels in our bodies and give
our bodies the ability to healfrom these heart disease and
high cholesterol and diabetesand potentially prevent dementia
in the future.
And so it, it's reallyfascinating, all these things
that I've learned about it, andI just wanna keep on learning
(13:47):
because.
It, it's a developing story atthis point of we have people who
are actually willing to say,hold up.
This isn't right.
And.
You know, the, the doctors whoare saying this are actually
getting a lot of flack for it.
Some of them are even beingthreatened to have their MD
license taken away, which Ithink is incredibly unfortunate
(14:08):
because they're discovering thetrue realities of our health
that these chronic illnesses arereversible, but the American
healthcare system doesn't wantthese chronic illnesses to be
reversible because if peopledon't have the chronic
illnesses, then the healthcarecompanies.
Can't make money off of them.
(14:29):
I
Katie (14:29):
Exactly.
Chrissy (14:30):
Just like I've said before, you know, healthy people
are not beneficial for thehealthcare economy because they
don't buy medications everysingle week.
They don't go to the doctor sixtimes a year.
They go to the doctor once theydon't get meds and doctors don't
get kickbacks from them buyingorganic food.
And, sorry.
Katie (14:48):
I have I have to take a minute and explain the process
of.
Creating margarine orshortening.
I literally read this to Wesbecause I was like, this is so
disgusting.
And in my book, I write on theside, disgusting in huge capital
letters.
So, it's the process ofhydrogenation and it's basically
(15:09):
taking the polyunsaturated fats.
So they use, you know, cheapoils like vegetable, canola,
soy, or corn oils, even cottonseed oils.
Actually here it says.
And these, these oils, like Isaid, are already rancid.
They've already been oxidized,which, you know, it makes them
very highly volatile whenthey're heated up.
(15:30):
so they take them after theirextraction process and they mix
them with tiny metal particles,usually nickel oxide.
And then after that, the nextstep is they pump in soap like
emulsifiers and starch in orderto give it that like fluffier
consistency that you would seein a butter.
(15:51):
And then after that, they heatit up.
They steam clean it at superhigh temperatures.
This is to allow them to removethe unpleasant odor.
It says.
That has come from this processnow, but then, so now you have
this stick of margarine.
However, apparently when you dothis, it comes out gray.
(16:12):
So you just, it's just a, areally unappetizing gray.
So in order to remove thegrayness from it.
They remove that with bleach,and so they bleach it and then
they add in dyes and strongflavors in order for it to
resemble butter, and thenfinally it's compressed and put
(16:34):
into those little blocks that weget at the grocery store or the
tubs, and they are sold as ahealth food.
Now, I don't know about you,Chrissy, growing up, we actually
had the, I can't believe it'snot butter in our refrigerator
and
Chrissy (16:48):
that.
I, I remember going to yourhouse growing up and loving the
fact that you always had the, Icannot believe it's not butter,
because I never had it.
My parents were veryintentional.
They said we need to have thehigh quality Irish butter,
Kerrygold only.
And so I loved going to yourhouse'cause you had, I can't
(17:09):
believe it's not butter.
And I always wanted toastbecause then I could have that
butter.
Katie (17:15):
is just so funny and, and I don't blame my parents for
like feeding us this kind ofgarbage because again, like the
marketing for these things wasdone so well that pretty much
the whole world believes thatthis is the healthier route,
that, oh, saturated fats are theproblem to our health, and so we
(17:38):
need to remove them and bring inthese fats that are derived
from, you know, cheap Oils.
So they take the corn that theydon't wanna actually feed us or
even feed to cattle, and they'relike, we're gonna make this into
oil and call it healthy, andthen we're gonna make it into
this margarine.
And it's just like, oh my gosh.
Like I am never going to look atmargarine the same after knowing
(18:02):
that they put metal into it andthen they bleach it and that, I
mean, when they said that itturns gray and they have to
bleach it just to make sure it'snot gray.
I was like, huh so gross!.
Chrissy (18:12):
I don't know about you.
Last time I checked.
There's not very many foods thatgrow naturally that are gray.
Gray is a very unappetizingcolor.
I.
Probably because it doesn't showup naturally.
They don't like, even in kids'foods, they avoid gray food
coloring because nobody wants toeat a gray food.
(18:34):
Nobody
Katie (18:34):
wants gray.
Yeah, so polyunsaturated.
Fats are considered rancid,which means that they are
oxidized because they've beensubjected to that high heat.
And then what I was learning wasthat rancid oils are
characterized by free radicals,which the free radicals are
really the things that end upcausing all of these issues with
(18:59):
us.
And on the Far end of thespectrum.
It, it causes all these reallyintense chronic illnesses, but
even just things like, you know,free radical damage, causes like
skin damage and wrinkles,premature aging, it causes
damage to your tissues andorgans, and, and really sets the
stage inside of your organs fortumors to be produced.
(19:24):
I mean, this paragraph here islike going through every area of
your body and like free radicalswill go and just destroy it all.
And, one of the things too thatI was learning about fats and
oils is we've kind of heard likeOmega-3 fatty acids are good for
us and there's not a lot ofmention to Omega-6 fatty acids
(19:45):
and our bodies need a balance ofthese two, But when we have too
much of the polyunsaturatedfats, our body, then creates too
much Omega-6 fatty acids, andthen we have too few of the
Omega-3 fatty acids.
We need both, but we need it tolike a one-to-one ratio.
(20:05):
But when we have thepolyunsaturated fats, I think it
was somewhere in here, it saidthat there's an imbalance.
It's something like 19 to 1Omega-6 fatty acids to Omega-3.
And so when you have anoverproduction of Omega-6.
it says in this book that itinterferes with the production
of prostaglandins, and if youdon't know what prostaglandins
(20:27):
are, but basically,prostaglandins are good for
fighting off the bad stuff, suchas tumors or you know, cancerous
cells, inflammation, it helpsfight for high blood pressure it
helps fight off the irritationin your gut track it, it does
all of the good stuff.
It's kind of almost like thatadded protection for your body.
(20:48):
And so if you have too muchOmega-6, it's blocking the
prostaglandins and yourprostaglandins are a good part
of your immune system.
And so with the seed oils, wemiss out on that.
And so we need to start dousingthings in butter, and I love it
right now.
So my, my underground crunchymama friends and I, we joke all
(21:10):
the time about like butter andall this stuff.
And my friend like made somebanana bread and like put like a
whole stick of butter and meltedit on the top of the banana
bread.
And she's like, I'm just feedingthis to my kids.
And then I sent a picture backof like, I just gave Malachi a
stick of butter.
And he's literally just likeeating it and it's just, it is
(21:30):
so funny sometimes,'cause like,like even a year ago, me would
look at this and be like, youare crazy girl.
But the more that I'm learningand the more that I'm actually
diving into some of the scienceand the history of all this, I'm
like, how do we get here?
This is crazy.
And the fact that we all believethis to be the case, that like
seed oils are the, the, thehealthier route.
(21:52):
It's just.
It so crazy to me, but what doyou, should we do from here,
Chrissy?
Chrissy (21:57):
so we, we said the, the fats and the oils that are good
to use are tallow and butter,and then behind that would be
avocado oil and olive oil.
They're not as great as tallowand butter, but they're still
good.
If you think about the processof how these four oils are
created, it's a process calledcold pressing where they
(22:18):
literally take the fat or themilk fat or the olive or the
avocado, and they squeeze it andout comes oil.
I don't know if you've evertried to squeeze an olive.
They're oily.
If you squeeze fat, it's oily.
You could squeeze it with yourhands and oil comes out, you
know?
But these other oils, like,think of sunflower oil.
(22:40):
When was the last time you triedto squeeze a sunflower seed and
you got oil out of it like thatjust doesn't happen.
And so these seed oils, theseseeds cannot be cold pressed in
order to create the oil becausethey're just not oily things.
(23:01):
And so that's why they have togo through this super intense
process, this super toxicprocess in order to create these
oil from non-oil things.
yeah, With that, definitely oilsto avoid are vegetable oil,
shortening margarine, canolaoil, safflower oil, sunflower
(23:23):
oil, peanut oil, even thoughpeanuts aren't seeds, but it's
still a seed oil.
Katie (23:29):
I have heard that things like peanut or even sesame oil.
Can be okay as long as it isspecifically stated that it is
cold pressed.
Because if something, and, andeven with.
Like olive oil, it could be coldpressed or it could not be, and
it could go through this highlyvolatile process where it
(23:51):
includes like using bleach inorder to get the oils out and,
and it uses like a chemicalprocessing.
And so if you do choose to dosomething like peanut or sesame
or even like sunflower oil, likeit, they specifically have to be
cold pressed.
And even like I have like analmond oil body, oil I guess it
(24:14):
is,
Chrissy (24:14):
Mm-hmm.
Katie (24:15):
It's, it's literally just an oil but it's, yeah, it's
almond and it is specificallylike an organic cold pressed
almond oil.
And this was like actually inthe beginning of my seed oil
journey, I kind of like read alittle bit about it and I was
like, okay, cold pressed is abetter process for things like
peanuts and sesames and almondsand anything that's more of like
(24:35):
that nut, it's much harder.
And so those things become moreexpensive when you buy them as a
cold pressed option because likeChrissy said, they're not
necessarily like oily oily, likepeanuts do have a lot of oil.
Like you think when they mashthem up and then they make
peanut butter, you really don'tneed to add in oil because there
are oils in it.
It's just harder to get tobecause you have to go through
(24:58):
a, deeper pressing and grindingprocess than something like
tallow where it's easier.
Chrissy (25:04):
While you were talking Katie, I did the honors of
Google searching whether or notChick-fil-A's peanut oil was
cold pressed.
It is not.
Katie (25:13):
Chrissy,
Chrissy (25:14):
I am trying to find any reason to go to Chick-fil-A and
they are letting me down.
Katie (25:20):
yeah, I, I had a conversation with some friends
at dinner the other night, andour friend jokingly was like.
Didn't I hear somewhere thatChick-fil-A adds MSG to their,
chicken nuggets and theirchicken patties and we're like,
yeah
Chrissy (25:36):
Absolutely.
Their number one chickensandwich with bread, chicken
pickles.
Bread has 50 ingredients in it,
Katie (25:47):
what?
Chrissy (25:47):
including blue and yellow dye.
Why?
Why, why it, it, it just makesme so sad.
Anyway, sorry, we're getting offtopic.
Katie (25:57):
The other oil too that I have learned that is really
healthy and we've been trying touse a lot more of is coconut
oil.
It actually has like a naturalantibiotic property to it.
And so I've actually learnedthis.
This might be.
Like could be helpful forsomeone, but it's also strange,
I have not tested this out, butI heard that coconut oil can be
(26:17):
a really great natural way tohelp, fight yeast infections.
And so because it has that morelike antibacterial property, it
can help fight off the yeast.
So, coconut oil can also be goodjust to like eat with a spoon
because it also can help fightlike infections that you have.
So if it's kind of a naturalantibiotic almost, then if you
(26:41):
have any sort of infections, itcan help with that.
So, yeah, I don't know.
Chrissy (26:46):
Interesting that, that reminds me that, another way
that you can identify whether ornot in oil or a fat is good to
use for cooking or merely justto like put on things is whether
or not it is solid at roomtemperature.
Oftentimes those fats that aresolid at room temperature are
(27:06):
those saturated fats that arevery stable and less volatile.
They're not gonna give you thosefree radicals to damage your
cells.
And so that goes to show likebutter, ghee, tallow, coconut
oil, those are all solid at roomtemperature.
So they're very good to use forcooking.
Katie, I also wanted to mentionlike.
(27:28):
Important things to think aboutin terms of the temperature that
each of these products isgetting to because, you know,
each of these good fats that weare talking about nonetheless
still do have like a maximumtemperature that they are still
considered good and they eachstill go rancid once they get
hot enough.
(27:49):
Cause you know, think aboutbutter, it turns brown.
You can still burn butter andthen it tastes disgusting.
And so we're looking at eitherthe burn point or the smoke
point of these oils.
Because each of these oils dohave a different temperature at
which they do go rancid,unfortunately, like.
(28:09):
You add heat to anything, it'sgoing to disrupt the chemical
compound of it.
And so these animal products,animal oils can still go bad,
but it's important to know atwhat point they go bad so that
you can use.
These oils appropriately.
So the thing that you wannafocus on is the smoke point of
(28:32):
each of these oils.
And so some oils you're gonnawanna focus on using a lower
temperature cooking such asbutter, tallow, and unrefined
coconut oil.
Unrefined coconut oil just meansthey take the coconut oil and
they.
Leave it as is.
So it has a lot of that, likecoconutty flavor to it.
(28:53):
But those ones have a smokepoint of about three 50 to 400
degrees.
So good for just quickly makingan egg on the stove, maybe some
sauteing of vegetables or,cooking meat or things like
that.
On a stove, you're not gettingsuper, super hot or anything,
but then once you start gettingover that 400 degrees, that's
when those three, the butter,tallow, and unrefined coconut
(29:17):
oil, their chemical compoundscan start breaking down because
that heat impacts them andchanges them.
That's just the reality ofchemistry and so.
Once you're getting above 400degrees, you can use olive oil.
Its smoke point is just aboutfour 10, so just over 400
degrees, but still not great touse if you're getting much
hotter than that.
(29:38):
If you are getting hotter than410 degrees.
It's important to use virginrefined coconut oil.
So refined coconut oil merelyjust means that they squeeze out
the impurities through a coldpress process.
It is still okay to eat refinedcoconut oil, but they do cold
press process to get out theimpurities, which also then
(30:01):
takes out that coconut flavorfrom it, so it's a more neutral
flavored coconut oil that doeshave a higher smoke point
because all those impuritiesthat burn have been taken out.
So that smoke point is about 450degrees.
And then much higher than thatwe have ghee and avocado oil,
about 480 to 510 degreesFahrenheit.
(30:23):
And so if you're cookingsomething really, really hot,
like you're frying chicken, youknow that oil has to be really
hot in order to use, and so Iwould recommend using ghee or
avocado oil for those.
Whereas if you're just cookingsomething quick on the stove,
you know, an egg or piece ofchicken or something like that,
you can use those oils with alower smoked point, like butter
(30:46):
tallow or unrefined coconut oil.
I also wanted to touch onexactly what ghee is because
it's not an oil that we use veryfrequently in America.
So I'm sure most people haveactually seen if you take butter
and you throw it in themicrowave or you put it on the
stove, it kind of separates alittle bit.
(31:07):
You have like a film on the topof like the, fluff, I guess It
ki it kind of looks like fluff.
Katie (31:14):
Totally fluff.
Chrissy (31:15):
You know, you have the film on the top and then you get
the clearer layer on the bottom.
So that layer of stuff on thetop is that milk fat, that will
get scraped away.
And then what's left underneathis a clarified butter.
And the higher you heat it up,the more clarified it gets until
it goes rancid, of course.
But.
What that is, that's left is theghee.
(31:35):
So ghee is pretty much like a, aclarified version of butter with
less milk fat in it,essentially, but it's more
saturated, so it's good So yeah,that, that's just like
Recommendation on how to usethese oils fats appropriately
while you're cooking.
It's good to keep in mind.
They also have different flavorprofiles.
(31:57):
So if you're going for more oflike a, buttery, like animal
kind, like steak kind of flavor,you might use butter or tallow.
But if you're going, if you'resauteing vegetables or making
like a vegetable soup orsomething like that.
You might wanna stay away fromthose and use more avocado oil
or coconut oil, you know, thingsthat are gonna bring out more
like plant flavors, I guess soto say.
(32:21):
Or you could just be like me anddon't really care which oil
you're using because you don'treally cook that hot anyways, so
you just use whatever you got.
Katie (32:28):
That's a good point
Chrissy (32:30):
I don't fry things very often.
Katie (32:31):
One of the last things that I had to share is just
that, and this was something Istumbled upon, but the container
that the oils come in,especially if they are more of
that liquid at room temperature,so like olive oil or avocado oil
or even like now you think ofvegetable or canola oil, you
(32:52):
want it in a dark bottle that isglass and kind of keeps the
light from getting into itbecause it just helps to keep it
better over time.
So you think about the fact thatvegetable oil or canola oil,
when you go and get it at thegrocery store, typically in a
plastic clear container.
And it's like clearly they don'tcare what is happening to that
(33:13):
oil'cause it's already oxidizedso much and it's already rancid,
it's already bad for you.
And so it's just like, you justthrow it in a plastic bottle and
call it good.
And you're like, okay, clearlythis thing is not of superior
quality.
We kind of talked about that toowith, essential oils.
Like you need to have them inbottles that will keep the
(33:33):
quality of it over time becauseit keeps the light out.
So anyway, it's just like one ofthose things that I never really
paid attention to, but even likethe olive oil and the avocado
oil we have here at our home isin these like darker colored
bottles.
And yeah, I just never knew thatthere was a purpose behind it.
So if you ever see like oliveoil in something clear, then you
(33:57):
also know it's probably not agood version of olive oil, and
again it's probably not, likecold stuff.
Chrissy (34:03):
Right.
Katie (34:04):
So I just thought that was interesting.
Chrissy (34:05):
Another thing that I am just now remembering that I
learned a while ago about oliveoil and avocado oil is
unfortunately, the price reallydoes buy you the quality, and so
if you're getting a lowerquality olive oil that's in that
plastic bottle, oftentimes ifyou look on the back of it, you
(34:26):
can see where the olives weresourced from, and it's important
to look for an olive oil thathas one single source.
Because if it is sourced fromfour or five different
countries, then it's likely thatthe olive oil has been cut with
other unsaturated oils likecanola oil or vegetable oil,
(34:49):
just to increase the quantitywithout.
Having to say that it's actuallyin it, unfortunately.
So it's important to look forthose single origin olive oils
and avocado oils, because that'sone way you can also guarantee
that the oil has not been cutwith other unsaturated oils.
Katie (35:08):
Wow.
There's there's so much.
I mean, I, I feel like evenwhen, as I'm looking at my book
here in front of me, I'm like,man, there's so many other
things that I would love toshare and that are just like
mind blowing things of, of allthe benefits of even just
needing fat and what it could dofor you and everything.
But we are kind of running outtatime here, Chrissy.
So why don't you give ourlisteners a tip or two to walk
(35:33):
away with today of somethingthey can start implementing in
their own lives?
Chrissy (35:39):
Yeah, for sure.
So, I don't know if I've sharedbefore, but I am definitely in
the camp of finish using whatyou have in your home and next
time you buy something new, buysomething completely new.
You know, I am not one to go andthrow out my entire pantry
because everything has canolaoil in it.
You know, finish what you got,then buy something better.
(36:02):
And so if you're using canolaoil for brownies, then finish it
up.
You know, it's not, obviouslyit's not killed you yet, it's
not gonna kill you in the nextthree days.
But if you continue to buy itand continue to intentionally
use those oils, now that youknow better, we have provided
the information for you, youknow better.
(36:23):
It is now your decision to makethese choices for your health.
And so from this point on, Iwould recommend next time you go
to the grocery store to buy anysort of cooking oil, whether it
be olive oil, avocado oil,tallow, ghee, whatever it is,
coconut oil.
Make sure you're buying yourselfthe good stuff so that you can
(36:44):
take one step towards betterhealth.
What about you, Katie?
Do you have any recommendations?
Katie (36:52):
I think that the tip I recommend is.
It's actually, it's kind of asneaky thing that I've noticed
is that a lot of organic kind ofprocessed foods, so if you think
about chips or snacky foods,like granola bars or things like
that, even though they arelisted as organic, they often
(37:15):
still have organic seed oils.
And so even though they'relisted as organic.
They're still seed oils.
And so that's been a hard thingfor me is finding like good
chips to eat and things likethat, that are organic, but also
don't add in seed oils.
So it's been a process for me,but it just reading the labels
(37:37):
and not just trusting the oneson the front, the like badges of
honor, such as like organic,because even when they're
organic, they might be lacedwith different seed oils and
stuff unfortunately.
So just like getting familiarwith that stuff and being okay
with saying yes sometimes to theseed oils, because again, like
(37:57):
an organic seed oil is going tobe better than a conventional
seed oil.
So if you really like a granolabar that you found that is
organic but also has a seed oil.
It's probably much better thanlike the Chewy brand that is
just totally chemicals and notreal food.
So like being okay with theprocess, being slow.
(38:18):
Chrissy says this all the time,is just like, take those slow
steps and, and yeah, just likemaking the next right choice for
you and your family and gettingfamiliar with it all.
But those are the tips that Ihave and yeah, you can also, I
don't know if you've taken alook at our show notes before,
but we also, we link to a lot ofthe things that we mention in
(38:39):
our episodes, but we also linkto our Facebook group, which is
Crunchy Christian Mamas on aBudget.
So you can always join us there.
We link to our newsletter and wealso have a wonderful guide to
actually affording a non-toxiclife.
It's something that we recentlycame out with and it's a free
workbook that you can downloadby joining our newsletter.
(39:01):
And we send it to you and itjust kind of gives you some tips
on how to do all this non-toxic,holistic kind of crunchy stuff,
but on a budget because we, wedo, we wanna honor God with our
bodies and our finances andyeah, just be able to glorify
him in that way.
So go and grab those things andcheck out the show notes for
(39:22):
each of our episodes'cause weadd lots of great resources
there for you.
Chrissy (39:25):
We pray over each and every one of you guys, and we
hope that these episodes can behelpful in your journey to
becoming a better steward ofyour body, your mind, your soul,
your spirit, your finances, andyour families.
We're praying that this episodewas helpful for you and we'll
see you next time.
Hey, and welcome to Crunchy Stewardship.
My name is Katie Jones.
Chrissy (00:03):
And my name is Chrissy Rombach.
We are two cousins who arepassionate about learning and
sharing knowledge to equipothers to steward their
spiritual, mental, emotional,financial, and physical health
in order to honor God in everyaspect of their lives.
Katie (00:19):
In this podcast, we are taking a deep dive into what it
means to steward our lives asGod originally intended for us.
With the resources that God hasgiven us, we will look at topics
like food, medicine, finances,mental health, and lots more
through a natural lens and witha biblical foundation.
Chrissy (00:40):
But before we get started, if you've been enjoying
our episode, make sure you likeand subscribe to us and leave a
five star rating.
This helps other people find ourshow in the future.
And, if you're not alreadysigned up for our weekly
newsletter, go and take a momentand do that by clicking the link
in the show notes.
Katie (00:59):
In today's episode, we are switching gears a little
bit.
We recently talked aboutessential oils, and now we are
going to look at seed oils.
Now seed oils get a very badwrap today.
I think a lot of us kind of knowseed oils as this like hot
(01:22):
button topic and we know thatit's something that we should be
looking out for.
For me, actually, I had beenhearing this a ton, like, don't
eat seed oils.
If you see seed oils in yourfoods, avoid it.
But I literally think probablylike four months ago, I didn't
(01:43):
actually know what seed oilswere and I was like, well, okay,
I don't see anything oningredients list that says a
seed oil specifically.
So I was kind of confusedexactly what it meant when
people said seed oils.
So maybe Chrissy, you can helpclear it up for those of us who
(02:03):
are a little unsure about whatseed oils actually are.
Chrissy (02:07):
Yeah, so seed oils, they can be a little bit sneaky
sometimes because like you said,it's not specifically mentioned
in the ingredients list.
Seed oil.
Now conveniently some seed oils.
Do technically say seed in thecase of sunflower seed oil or
safflower seed oil or grape seedoil.
(02:29):
Those very specifically say thiskind of seed oil.
But other seed oils likevegetable oil and canola oil, do
not say that.
Now, what characterizes a seedoil as such is its chemical
properties of being anunsaturated fat.
Now.
Unsaturated fat essentiallymeans that in the chemical
(02:52):
compound of the oil, it hassome, I don't know how to say
this specifically.
Katie (03:01):
Well, so I was reading about this in my wonderful book,
which we will add a link tobecause I love this book
already.
It's called NourishingTraditions, the Cookbook that
Challenges Politically CorrectNutrition, and the Diet
Dictocrats, and
Chrissy (03:18):
Ooh.
Katie (03:18):
I actually really like it.
It's kind of like a super nerdycookbook that brings in science
and chemistry with politics andthen nutrition, and it's kind of
like mind blowing the way thatthey help you understand like
how we got to the place thatwe're at with things like seed
oils and just general nutritionand food and yeah, she was
(03:39):
talking about thepolyunsaturated fats that have.
This is back to chemistry class,right?
So you think about all of theconnecting molecules when you
would do like carbon, carbon,carbon and do the CCCC or
whatever, is it hydrogen?
I don't even remember.
H, H, HH.
And then you'd have the lines,either the double bond with the
two lines or the single linethat has a single bond.
(04:00):
And whenever they have thedouble bond, it's like when
there is a kink in the strand,and here I am on our video.
I, and you guys can't see thisright now as I'm describing it,
but there's a little teepee overmy head as I'm like, there's a
kink in the strand and I'm onlyshowing Chrissy
Chrissy (04:17):
Just creating a crown.
Katie (04:18):
Anyway, it's, it's one of those things that you, you
really don't need to know the,specifics of it, but it's, I'll
let Chrissy kind of keep goingwith it like what that means,
when there's these spaces andkinks in the, the chemical
strands of things.
Chrissy, you wanna take it away?
Chrissy (04:33):
So essentially, these unsaturated fats are missing
pieces of the puzzle, whichcauses them to be very reactive
and they're unstable, so they'remore likely to bind to other
compounds, and because of that,it can cause a lot of problems
within our body.
They bind to other nutrientswithin our digestive system and
(04:56):
can actually prevent us frombeing able to absorb those
nutrients well.
Whereas with saturated fats,like animal fats such as, butter
or tallow, those are saturatedand so they're very stable,
especially at high temperatures.
And so.
They don't try to bind withthose other nutrients within our
(05:17):
digestive system, which gives usthe ability to continue to
absorb all of the nutrients thatwe've eaten effectively.
Katie (05:25):
Just last night when I was reading this book, they were
talking about the saturated fatsand how they help us to absorb
the fat soluble vitamins.
Um, Especially things likevitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K,
and vitamin E.
And like you said, Chrissy, whenyou have these other
polyunsaturated oils, which theygo rancid very quickly, and
(05:50):
especially when they are exposedto high heat.
And so they, they don't allowour bodies to actually absorb
these vitamins and minerals andeverything very effectively.
But, you know, so you thinkabout something like skim milk
that's been pasteurized.
It's literally like there is nofat in this milk, and we've been
(06:13):
taught that skim milk issupposedly the healthier option,
but it's really not healthybecause they've, they've
stripped out a lot of the goodstuff and it's not helping our
body to absorb things that wouldbe good in the milk as well as
like with other foods.
And so we actually need likehigher fat contents in things
like our milk and, you know,cooking oils, so butter or
(06:37):
tallow or even like eating thefat on meat.
I used to avoid that more for atexture thing, but now I'm like,
oh, wow.
This is actually reallybeneficial because it helps to
keep our brains growingeffectively and our bodies
taking in all the vitamins andbeing able to absorb them and
use them properly.
And I just, I don't know.
(06:57):
Fat has always been made out tobe this like terrible culprit.
And I actually, in this book,again, it kind of goes through a
lot of the politics and historyof like, how did we get here?
Because clearly when you, whenyou look at stuff like this,
you're like.
Well, seed oils are clearly sobad for us and they're
destroying our health.
Like how did we get to thispoint?
(07:17):
And, I also read some otherstuff that was outside of this
book, but interestingly enough,like back in, I think World War
II Canada was actuallycontracted to make a ton of
canola oil in order for the oilto be used in machines for war,
right?
So like to oil up and grease updifferent machines and things.
(07:37):
Well, after the war was over,they now had this abundance of
canola oil and they're like,what do we do with it?
And they're like, let's put itin our foods.
And in some ways they're like,okay, we don't want to waste
this resource.
But they did know that it wasn'treally great for us.
And they had studies and thisbook, that I've been reading,
the Nourishing Traditions, onekind of talks about how they hid
(08:01):
a lot of the actual evidencethat shows that seed oils are
bad for us.
And they tried to cover it upwith saying that saturated fats,
so the, more natural fats thatwe see from, animals, especially
that those were the culprits forhigh cholesterol and all these
things.
And I did see that when you havefats, so like when you eat
(08:24):
butter, your cholesterol willtake a small spike like right
when you have it, but then itactually evens out and then over
time these saturated fatsactually help your cholesterol
to lower.
Whereas on the opposite side,seed oils make your cholesterol
spike and get way outta control.
And so again, it's just like,it's so crazy how.
(08:46):
We've kind of flipped the scriptso badly because people wanna
make money off this kind ofstuff.
Chrissy (08:52):
Yeah.
Another thing that I learnedinterestingly enough is um,
around the end of World War II,just like you were saying, when
they had this abundance ofcanola oil.
That's about the same time thatthe American Heart Association
presented their healthrecommendations of using
margarine and unsaturated fatslike canola oil and vegetable
(09:16):
oil and low fat foods as opposedto these animal fats with butter
and, tallow and things likethat.
And right around that time, assoon as the American Heart
Association made thoserecommendations, the rate of
heart disease in our nationskyrocketed.
You know, like in the twenties,it was unheard of for somebody
(09:40):
to die of a heart attack becausethey just didn't have heart
attacks.
People were eating eggs, butter,and tallow on a daily basis, and
heart attacks were.
Not really a thing until afterWorld War II, when the American
Heart Association startedrecommending these low fat foods
using polyunsaturated fatsinstead of the saturated fats.
(10:03):
That's also when we see thoseheart attacks increasing heart
disease increasing, and the truehealth of our country really
took a turn for the worst atthat point when we started
seeing these unsaturated fatsin, our grocery stores.
And one thing to think about,you know in terms of like the
consumer looking to buysomething that tastes good.
(10:26):
Fat tastes good.
Us as humans are predisposed tohave a desire for fat.
It's part of our survivalinstincts because fat gives us
long-term energy stores, and soback in the time periods when we
didn't have an abundance of foodand humans regularly went
(10:47):
through periods of forcedfasting during famines and
things like that, they werereliant upon their fat stores.
And so, when food was readilyavailable, they were predisposed
to desire fatty foods, which westill have that predisposition.
It's just that, especially herein America, we don't have the
(11:10):
issue of famine causing problemsunless we're talking about the
bird flu and eggs right now.
But that's a different story.
And so, the fat also, gives thefood more flavor.
And when the American HeartAssociation recommended to take
out these saturated fats and useunsaturated fats, which are more
(11:31):
in the form of oil andmargarine.
I don't know if you've ever likehad a spoonful of butter versus
a spoonful of margarine
Katie (11:38):
So different.
Chrissy (11:38):
Margarine's disgust.
It's disgusting.
It tastes like cardboard.
And so unfortunately that that'swhat happens when you take the
fat out of food.
It leaves it with very littleflavor.
And so in order to combat that,obviously the consumer's not
gonna buy something that tastesbad.
The food production companiesactually added sugar into the
(12:03):
foods in order to make themtaste better so that consumers
would actually buy the low fatproducts.
And we have learned now that,blood sugar spikes from that
sugar and therefore insulinspikes from the blood sugar
spikes have continued to lead toan increase in heart disease,
(12:23):
high cholesterol, high bloodpressure, dementia, even.
Studies have shown thatincreased levels of insulin in
the body from these increasedsugar intake is one of the
reasons that we have dementia somuch on the rise right now.
And so I think it's reallyimportant to kind of take a step
back and look at the history of.
(12:44):
Okay, so this, all thesepolitical agendas is what got us
to this place to begin with.
And so how can I get back toeating food how God created it.
You know, if you look at thefood that God gave Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden, they hadplants and they had animals, and
(13:05):
that
Katie (13:06):
Mm-hmm.
Chrissy (13:06):
is about it.
You don't see refined sugaranywhere in there.
And so if we bring our dietsback to fruits, vegetables, and
meat and using animal derivedfats in order to cook our food,
then we are going to decreasethose glucose levels in our
(13:26):
body, decrease those insulinlevels in our bodies and give
our bodies the ability to healfrom these heart disease and
high cholesterol and diabetesand potentially prevent dementia
in the future.
And so it, it's reallyfascinating, all these things
that I've learned about it, andI just wanna keep on learning
(13:47):
because.
It, it's a developing story atthis point of we have people who
are actually willing to say,hold up.
This isn't right.
And.
You know, the, the doctors whoare saying this are actually
getting a lot of flack for it.
Some of them are even beingthreatened to have their MD
license taken away, which Ithink is incredibly unfortunate
(14:08):
because they're discovering thetrue realities of our health
that these chronic illnesses arereversible, but the American
healthcare system doesn't wantthese chronic illnesses to be
reversible because if peopledon't have the chronic
illnesses, then the healthcarecompanies.
Can't make money off of them.
(14:29):
I
Katie (14:29):
Exactly.
Chrissy (14:30):
Just like I've said before, you know, healthy people
are not beneficial for thehealthcare economy because they
don't buy medications everysingle week.
They don't go to the doctor sixtimes a year.
They go to the doctor once theydon't get meds and doctors don't
get kickbacks from them buyingorganic food.
And, sorry.
Katie (14:48):
I have I have to take a minute and explain the process
of.
Creating margarine orshortening.
I literally read this to Wesbecause I was like, this is so
disgusting.
And in my book, I write on theside, disgusting in huge capital
letters.
So, it's the process ofhydrogenation and it's basically
(15:09):
taking the polyunsaturated fats.
So they use, you know, cheapoils like vegetable, canola,
soy, or corn oils, even cottonseed oils.
Actually here it says.
And these, these oils, like Isaid, are already rancid.
They've already been oxidized,which, you know, it makes them
very highly volatile whenthey're heated up.
(15:30):
so they take them after theirextraction process and they mix
them with tiny metal particles,usually nickel oxide.
And then after that, the nextstep is they pump in soap like
emulsifiers and starch in orderto give it that like fluffier
consistency that you would seein a butter.
(15:51):
And then after that, they heatit up.
They steam clean it at superhigh temperatures.
This is to allow them to removethe unpleasant odor.
It says.
That has come from this processnow, but then, so now you have
this stick of margarine.
However, apparently when you dothis, it comes out gray.
(16:12):
So you just, it's just a, areally unappetizing gray.
So in order to remove thegrayness from it.
They remove that with bleach,and so they bleach it and then
they add in dyes and strongflavors in order for it to
resemble butter, and thenfinally it's compressed and put
(16:34):
into those little blocks that weget at the grocery store or the
tubs, and they are sold as ahealth food.
Now, I don't know about you,Chrissy, growing up, we actually
had the, I can't believe it'snot butter in our refrigerator
and
Chrissy (16:48):
that.
I, I remember going to yourhouse growing up and loving the
fact that you always had the, Icannot believe it's not butter,
because I never had it.
My parents were veryintentional.
They said we need to have thehigh quality Irish butter,
Kerrygold only.
And so I loved going to yourhouse'cause you had, I can't
(17:09):
believe it's not butter.
And I always wanted toastbecause then I could have that
butter.
Katie (17:15):
is just so funny and, and I don't blame my parents for
like feeding us this kind ofgarbage because again, like the
marketing for these things wasdone so well that pretty much
the whole world believes thatthis is the healthier route,
that, oh, saturated fats are theproblem to our health, and so we
(17:38):
need to remove them and bring inthese fats that are derived
from, you know, cheap Oils.
So they take the corn that theydon't wanna actually feed us or
even feed to cattle, and they'relike, we're gonna make this into
oil and call it healthy, andthen we're gonna make it into
this margarine.
And it's just like, oh my gosh.
Like I am never going to look atmargarine the same after knowing
(18:02):
that they put metal into it andthen they bleach it and that, I
mean, when they said that itturns gray and they have to
bleach it just to make sure it'snot gray.
I was like, huh so gross!.
Chrissy (18:12):
I don't know about you.
Last time I checked.
There's not very many foods thatgrow naturally that are gray.
Gray is a very unappetizingcolor.
I.
Probably because it doesn't showup naturally.
They don't like, even in kids'foods, they avoid gray food
coloring because nobody wants toeat a gray food.
(18:34):
Nobody
Katie (18:34):
wants gray.
Yeah, so polyunsaturated.
Fats are considered rancid,which means that they are
oxidized because they've beensubjected to that high heat.
And then what I was learning wasthat rancid oils are
characterized by free radicals,which the free radicals are
really the things that end upcausing all of these issues with
(18:59):
us.
And on the Far end of thespectrum.
It, it causes all these reallyintense chronic illnesses, but
even just things like, you know,free radical damage, causes like
skin damage and wrinkles,premature aging, it causes
damage to your tissues andorgans, and, and really sets the
stage inside of your organs fortumors to be produced.
(19:24):
I mean, this paragraph here islike going through every area of
your body and like free radicalswill go and just destroy it all.
And, one of the things too thatI was learning about fats and
oils is we've kind of heard likeOmega-3 fatty acids are good for
us and there's not a lot ofmention to Omega-6 fatty acids
(19:45):
and our bodies need a balance ofthese two, But when we have too
much of the polyunsaturatedfats, our body, then creates too
much Omega-6 fatty acids, andthen we have too few of the
Omega-3 fatty acids.
We need both, but we need it tolike a one-to-one ratio.
(20:05):
But when we have thepolyunsaturated fats, I think it
was somewhere in here, it saidthat there's an imbalance.
It's something like 19 to 1Omega-6 fatty acids to Omega-3.
And so when you have anoverproduction of Omega-6.
it says in this book that itinterferes with the production
of prostaglandins, and if youdon't know what prostaglandins
(20:27):
are, but basically,prostaglandins are good for
fighting off the bad stuff, suchas tumors or you know, cancerous
cells, inflammation, it helpsfight for high blood pressure it
helps fight off the irritationin your gut track it, it does
all of the good stuff.
It's kind of almost like thatadded protection for your body.
(20:48):
And so if you have too muchOmega-6, it's blocking the
prostaglandins and yourprostaglandins are a good part
of your immune system.
And so with the seed oils, wemiss out on that.
And so we need to start dousingthings in butter, and I love it
right now.
So my, my underground crunchymama friends and I, we joke all
(21:10):
the time about like butter andall this stuff.
And my friend like made somebanana bread and like put like a
whole stick of butter and meltedit on the top of the banana
bread.
And she's like, I'm just feedingthis to my kids.
And then I sent a picture backof like, I just gave Malachi a
stick of butter.
And he's literally just likeeating it and it's just, it is
(21:30):
so funny sometimes,'cause like,like even a year ago, me would
look at this and be like, youare crazy girl.
But the more that I'm learningand the more that I'm actually
diving into some of the scienceand the history of all this, I'm
like, how do we get here?
This is crazy.
And the fact that we all believethis to be the case, that like
seed oils are the, the, thehealthier route.
(21:52):
It's just.
It so crazy to me, but what doyou, should we do from here,
Chrissy?
Chrissy (21:57):
so we, we said the, the fats and the oils that are good
to use are tallow and butter,and then behind that would be
avocado oil and olive oil.
They're not as great as tallowand butter, but they're still
good.
If you think about the processof how these four oils are
created, it's a process calledcold pressing where they
(22:18):
literally take the fat or themilk fat or the olive or the
avocado, and they squeeze it andout comes oil.
I don't know if you've evertried to squeeze an olive.
They're oily.
If you squeeze fat, it's oily.
You could squeeze it with yourhands and oil comes out, you
know?
But these other oils, like,think of sunflower oil.
(22:40):
When was the last time you triedto squeeze a sunflower seed and
you got oil out of it like thatjust doesn't happen.
And so these seed oils, theseseeds cannot be cold pressed in
order to create the oil becausethey're just not oily things.
(23:01):
And so that's why they have togo through this super intense
process, this super toxicprocess in order to create these
oil from non-oil things.
yeah, With that, definitely oilsto avoid are vegetable oil,
shortening margarine, canolaoil, safflower oil, sunflower
(23:23):
oil, peanut oil, even thoughpeanuts aren't seeds, but it's
still a seed oil.
Katie (23:29):
I have heard that things like peanut or even sesame oil.
Can be okay as long as it isspecifically stated that it is
cold pressed.
Because if something, and, andeven with.
Like olive oil, it could be coldpressed or it could not be, and
it could go through this highlyvolatile process where it
(23:51):
includes like using bleach inorder to get the oils out and,
and it uses like a chemicalprocessing.
And so if you do choose to dosomething like peanut or sesame
or even like sunflower oil, likeit, they specifically have to be
cold pressed.
And even like I have like analmond oil body, oil I guess it
(24:14):
is,
Chrissy (24:14):
Mm-hmm.
Katie (24:15):
It's, it's literally just an oil but it's, yeah, it's
almond and it is specificallylike an organic cold pressed
almond oil.
And this was like actually inthe beginning of my seed oil
journey, I kind of like read alittle bit about it and I was
like, okay, cold pressed is abetter process for things like
peanuts and sesames and almondsand anything that's more of like
(24:35):
that nut, it's much harder.
And so those things become moreexpensive when you buy them as a
cold pressed option because likeChrissy said, they're not
necessarily like oily oily, likepeanuts do have a lot of oil.
Like you think when they mashthem up and then they make
peanut butter, you really don'tneed to add in oil because there
are oils in it.
It's just harder to get tobecause you have to go through
(24:58):
a, deeper pressing and grindingprocess than something like
tallow where it's easier.
Chrissy (25:04):
While you were talking Katie, I did the honors of
Google searching whether or notChick-fil-A's peanut oil was
cold pressed.
It is not.
Katie (25:13):
Chrissy,
Chrissy (25:14):
I am trying to find any reason to go to Chick-fil-A and
they are letting me down.
Katie (25:20):
yeah, I, I had a conversation with some friends
at dinner the other night, andour friend jokingly was like.
Didn't I hear somewhere thatChick-fil-A adds MSG to their,
chicken nuggets and theirchicken patties and we're like,
yeah
Chrissy (25:36):
Absolutely.
Their number one chickensandwich with bread, chicken
pickles.
Bread has 50 ingredients in it,
Katie (25:47):
what?
Chrissy (25:47):
including blue and yellow dye.
Why?
Why, why it, it, it just makesme so sad.
Anyway, sorry, we're getting offtopic.
Katie (25:57):
The other oil too that I have learned that is really
healthy and we've been trying touse a lot more of is coconut
oil.
It actually has like a naturalantibiotic property to it.
And so I've actually learnedthis.
This might be.
Like could be helpful forsomeone, but it's also strange,
I have not tested this out, butI heard that coconut oil can be
(26:17):
a really great natural way tohelp, fight yeast infections.
And so because it has that morelike antibacterial property, it
can help fight off the yeast.
So, coconut oil can also be goodjust to like eat with a spoon
because it also can help fightlike infections that you have.
So if it's kind of a naturalantibiotic almost, then if you
(26:41):
have any sort of infections, itcan help with that.
So, yeah, I don't know.
Chrissy (26:46):
Interesting that, that reminds me that, another way
that you can identify whether ornot in oil or a fat is good to
use for cooking or merely justto like put on things is whether
or not it is solid at roomtemperature.
Oftentimes those fats that aresolid at room temperature are
(27:06):
those saturated fats that arevery stable and less volatile.
They're not gonna give you thosefree radicals to damage your
cells.
And so that goes to show likebutter, ghee, tallow, coconut
oil, those are all solid at roomtemperature.
So they're very good to use forcooking.
Katie, I also wanted to mentionlike.
(27:28):
Important things to think aboutin terms of the temperature that
each of these products isgetting to because, you know,
each of these good fats that weare talking about nonetheless
still do have like a maximumtemperature that they are still
considered good and they eachstill go rancid once they get
hot enough.
(27:49):
Cause you know, think aboutbutter, it turns brown.
You can still burn butter andthen it tastes disgusting.
And so we're looking at eitherthe burn point or the smoke
point of these oils.
Because each of these oils dohave a different temperature at
which they do go rancid,unfortunately, like.
(28:09):
You add heat to anything, it'sgoing to disrupt the chemical
compound of it.
And so these animal products,animal oils can still go bad,
but it's important to know atwhat point they go bad so that
you can use.
These oils appropriately.
So the thing that you wannafocus on is the smoke point of
(28:32):
each of these oils.
And so some oils you're gonnawanna focus on using a lower
temperature cooking such asbutter, tallow, and unrefined
coconut oil.
Unrefined coconut oil just meansthey take the coconut oil and
they.
Leave it as is.
So it has a lot of that, likecoconutty flavor to it.
(28:53):
But those ones have a smokepoint of about three 50 to 400
degrees.
So good for just quickly makingan egg on the stove, maybe some
sauteing of vegetables or,cooking meat or things like
that.
On a stove, you're not gettingsuper, super hot or anything,
but then once you start gettingover that 400 degrees, that's
when those three, the butter,tallow, and unrefined coconut
(29:17):
oil, their chemical compoundscan start breaking down because
that heat impacts them andchanges them.
That's just the reality ofchemistry and so.
Once you're getting above 400degrees, you can use olive oil.
Its smoke point is just aboutfour 10, so just over 400
degrees, but still not great touse if you're getting much
hotter than that.
(29:38):
If you are getting hotter than410 degrees.
It's important to use virginrefined coconut oil.
So refined coconut oil merelyjust means that they squeeze out
the impurities through a coldpress process.
It is still okay to eat refinedcoconut oil, but they do cold
press process to get out theimpurities, which also then
(30:01):
takes out that coconut flavorfrom it, so it's a more neutral
flavored coconut oil that doeshave a higher smoke point
because all those impuritiesthat burn have been taken out.
So that smoke point is about 450degrees.
And then much higher than thatwe have ghee and avocado oil,
about 480 to 510 degreesFahrenheit.
(30:23):
And so if you're cookingsomething really, really hot,
like you're frying chicken, youknow that oil has to be really
hot in order to use, and so Iwould recommend using ghee or
avocado oil for those.
Whereas if you're just cookingsomething quick on the stove,
you know, an egg or piece ofchicken or something like that,
you can use those oils with alower smoked point, like butter
(30:46):
tallow or unrefined coconut oil.
I also wanted to touch onexactly what ghee is because
it's not an oil that we use veryfrequently in America.
So I'm sure most people haveactually seen if you take butter
and you throw it in themicrowave or you put it on the
stove, it kind of separates alittle bit.
(31:07):
You have like a film on the topof like the, fluff, I guess It
ki it kind of looks like fluff.
Katie (31:14):
Totally fluff.
Chrissy (31:15):
You know, you have the film on the top and then you get
the clearer layer on the bottom.
So that layer of stuff on thetop is that milk fat, that will
get scraped away.
And then what's left underneathis a clarified butter.
And the higher you heat it up,the more clarified it gets until
it goes rancid, of course.
But.
What that is, that's left is theghee.
(31:35):
So ghee is pretty much like a, aclarified version of butter with
less milk fat in it,essentially, but it's more
saturated, so it's good So yeah,that, that's just like
Recommendation on how to usethese oils fats appropriately
while you're cooking.
It's good to keep in mind.
They also have different flavorprofiles.
(31:57):
So if you're going for more oflike a, buttery, like animal
kind, like steak kind of flavor,you might use butter or tallow.
But if you're going, if you'resauteing vegetables or making
like a vegetable soup orsomething like that.
You might wanna stay away fromthose and use more avocado oil
or coconut oil, you know, thingsthat are gonna bring out more
like plant flavors, I guess soto say.
(32:21):
Or you could just be like me anddon't really care which oil
you're using because you don'treally cook that hot anyways, so
you just use whatever you got.
Katie (32:28):
That's a good point
Chrissy (32:30):
I don't fry things very often.
Katie (32:31):
One of the last things that I had to share is just
that, and this was something Istumbled upon, but the container
that the oils come in,especially if they are more of
that liquid at room temperature,so like olive oil or avocado oil
or even like now you think ofvegetable or canola oil, you
(32:52):
want it in a dark bottle that isglass and kind of keeps the
light from getting into itbecause it just helps to keep it
better over time.
So you think about the fact thatvegetable oil or canola oil,
when you go and get it at thegrocery store, typically in a
plastic clear container.
And it's like clearly they don'tcare what is happening to that
(33:13):
oil'cause it's already oxidizedso much and it's already rancid,
it's already bad for you.
And so it's just like, you justthrow it in a plastic bottle and
call it good.
And you're like, okay, clearlythis thing is not of superior
quality.
We kind of talked about that toowith, essential oils.
Like you need to have them inbottles that will keep the
(33:33):
quality of it over time becauseit keeps the light out.
So anyway, it's just like one ofthose things that I never really
paid attention to, but even likethe olive oil and the avocado
oil we have here at our home isin these like darker colored
bottles.
And yeah, I just never knew thatthere was a purpose behind it.
So if you ever see like oliveoil in something clear, then you
(33:57):
also know it's probably not agood version of olive oil, and
again it's probably not, likecold stuff.
Chrissy (34:03):
Right.
Katie (34:04):
So I just thought that was interesting.
Chrissy (34:05):
Another thing that I am just now remembering that I
learned a while ago about oliveoil and avocado oil is
unfortunately, the price reallydoes buy you the quality, and so
if you're getting a lowerquality olive oil that's in that
plastic bottle, oftentimes ifyou look on the back of it, you
(34:26):
can see where the olives weresourced from, and it's important
to look for an olive oil thathas one single source.
Because if it is sourced fromfour or five different
countries, then it's likely thatthe olive oil has been cut with
other unsaturated oils likecanola oil or vegetable oil,
(34:49):
just to increase the quantitywithout.
Having to say that it's actuallyin it, unfortunately.
So it's important to look forthose single origin olive oils
and avocado oils, because that'sone way you can also guarantee
that the oil has not been cutwith other unsaturated oils.
Katie (35:08):
Wow.
There's there's so much.
I mean, I, I feel like evenwhen, as I'm looking at my book
here in front of me, I'm like,man, there's so many other
things that I would love toshare and that are just like
mind blowing things of, of allthe benefits of even just
needing fat and what it could dofor you and everything.
But we are kind of running outtatime here, Chrissy.
So why don't you give ourlisteners a tip or two to walk
(35:33):
away with today of somethingthey can start implementing in
their own lives?
Chrissy (35:39):
Yeah, for sure.
So, I don't know if I've sharedbefore, but I am definitely in
the camp of finish using whatyou have in your home and next
time you buy something new, buysomething completely new.
You know, I am not one to go andthrow out my entire pantry
because everything has canolaoil in it.
You know, finish what you got,then buy something better.
(36:02):
And so if you're using canolaoil for brownies, then finish it
up.
You know, it's not, obviouslyit's not killed you yet, it's
not gonna kill you in the nextthree days.
But if you continue to buy itand continue to intentionally
use those oils, now that youknow better, we have provided
the information for you, youknow better.
(36:23):
It is now your decision to makethese choices for your health.
And so from this point on, Iwould recommend next time you go
to the grocery store to buy anysort of cooking oil, whether it
be olive oil, avocado oil,tallow, ghee, whatever it is,
coconut oil.
Make sure you're buying yourselfthe good stuff so that you can
(36:44):
take one step towards betterhealth.
What about you, Katie?
Do you have any recommendations?
Katie (36:52):
I think that the tip I recommend is.
It's actually, it's kind of asneaky thing that I've noticed
is that a lot of organic kind ofprocessed foods, so if you think
about chips or snacky foods,like granola bars or things like
that, even though they arelisted as organic, they often
(37:15):
still have organic seed oils.
And so even though they'relisted as organic.
They're still seed oils.
And so that's been a hard thingfor me is finding like good
chips to eat and things likethat, that are organic, but also
don't add in seed oils.
So it's been a process for me,but it just reading the labels
(37:37):
and not just trusting the oneson the front, the like badges of
honor, such as like organic,because even when they're
organic, they might be lacedwith different seed oils and
stuff unfortunately.
So just like getting familiarwith that stuff and being okay
with saying yes sometimes to theseed oils, because again, like
(37:57):
an organic seed oil is going tobe better than a conventional
seed oil.
So if you really like a granolabar that you found that is
organic but also has a seed oil.
It's probably much better thanlike the Chewy brand that is
just totally chemicals and notreal food.
So like being okay with theprocess, being slow.
(38:18):
Chrissy says this all the time,is just like, take those slow
steps and, and yeah, just likemaking the next right choice for
you and your family and gettingfamiliar with it all.
But those are the tips that Ihave and yeah, you can also, I
don't know if you've taken alook at our show notes before,
but we also, we link to a lot ofthe things that we mention in
(38:39):
our episodes, but we also linkto our Facebook group, which is
Crunchy Christian Mamas on aBudget.
So you can always join us there.
We link to our newsletter and wealso have a wonderful guide to
actually affording a non-toxiclife.
It's something that we recentlycame out with and it's a free
workbook that you can downloadby joining our newsletter.
(39:01):
And we send it to you and itjust kind of gives you some tips
on how to do all this non-toxic,holistic kind of crunchy stuff,
but on a budget because we, wedo, we wanna honor God with our
bodies and our finances andyeah, just be able to glorify
him in that way.
So go and grab those things andcheck out the show notes for
(39:22):
each of our episodes'cause weadd lots of great resources
there for you.
Chrissy (39:25):
We pray over each and every one of you guys, and we
hope that these episodes can behelpful in your journey to
becoming a better steward ofyour body, your mind, your soul,
your spirit, your finances, andyour families.
We're praying that this episodewas helpful for you and we'll
see you next time.
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