Essential Fatty Acids and Your Hormones
Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) are as important as vitamins. We can’t live without them. If our EFAs are out of balance our hormone system can’t do its job because the cells won’t respond properly. This is an important issue because the average American diet is way out of balance for EFAs.
Let’s talk a bit about EFAs and how to get the best balance in your diet. You will have to avoid most prepackaged, processed foods. Commercial food manufacturers take out Essential Fatty Acids and replace them with unnatural fats that extend shelf life and make food processing easier. Eighty percent of us in the United States don’t get enough of the good EFAs, and almost all of us have too much unnatural fat in our diet.
Unnatural fat includes trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils. Avoid all foods that have partially hydrogenated oil as an ingredient. This includes most bread and crackers, pastries, cookies, mayonnaise, etc. Read labels and go to health food stores to find foods that are free of partially hydrogenated oils. These unnatural oils create unhealthy cells that don’t respond well to hormone signals, and they block the function of healthy EFAs. And the huge irony is that they are sold as healthy, cholesterol-free alternatives. (In Europe they are banned or severely limited!)
Reduce the use of vegetable oils and use olive oil instead. Eat nuts, seeds and fish for healthy oils. The food industry uses high amounts of vegetable oils and as a result most of us have too much of the vegetable omega 6 oils and not enough of the fish, seed, nut omega 3 oils.
And don’t worry about these healthy oils being fattening. They will actually help you keep your weight down. It is usually diets with high sugar and refined carbohydrates that cause you to gain weight.
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies, insulin resistance, heavy metal toxicity and many other factors interfere with the body’s ability to make proper use of fatty acids. I’ll take this into account when I make recommendations for your nutritional supplements.
In Summary:
· Avoid partially hydrogenated oils. (Read labels)
· Avoid vegetable oils. Use extra-virgin olive oil instead.
· Avoid deep fried foods that create unnatural trans fats.
· Eat plentiful nuts, seeds and fish that contain high levels of healthy omega 3 oils.
For more dietary suggestions, read Basics of Healthy Eating.
