olive oil

Okay so I'm on a bit of a health kick recently with one more thing to add about Why We Get Fat. One of the more interesting parts of the book is the very last section. If we agree that carbohydrates are bad and completely unnecessary in a diet then the question becomes in what proportion of proteins to fats should we consume. Taubes alludes that a diet high in protein can be toxic but frustratingly doesn't follow through with much in terms of science. I've seen some reports like research showing liver damage but when you actually go back to these reports and read them they are both poorly designed from an experimental standpoint and the conclusions require 2-3 steps of linkage that aren't proven. In other words they are useless.

But let's just assume he is right. He suggests the appropriate ratio might be around 60-70% fats, 30-40% protein. Which got me to thinking how you could actually pull this off. And that thinking got me to the point where drinking oil is probably the easiest way. Absurd right? Well hold on. What about drinking olive oil? Still absurd?

Read this - Drink Olive Oil, Live to Be 120-Years-Old

Now one data point is hardly conclusive of anything.  But clearly for this women it is not deleterious and is suggestive that it could in fact be very healthy.

The comments are quite funny too because some of the "low-fat" and "eat less, exercise more" crowd just can't get their heads around it.

I find this rather incredulous, considering there are 23 grams of fat in a tablespoon of olive oil, that would be around 1000 grams of fat per day. The average woman can only handle about 30 grams of fat per day without becoming obese. She would have died from obesity or liver toxicity trying to process that much fat. Perhaps she meant a cup a week??

So if you can get your heads around that why not eat lard too? I mean most meat fats, while getting a bad saturated fat rap are just not that dissimilar to vegetable oils. They mainly have slightly higher saturated fat.  But if you ignore the bad advice on that (see this study), then why not?

In fact I grew up drinking oil.  It was fairly common to drink cod liver oil in England when I was young.  Most didn't like it but I'll be honest; I loved it.

It would be an interesting idea for a new type of bar.

To take this a little further consider that 1 tbsp of olive oil is around 120 calories. Or 1.3 cups is 2,500 calories or around the daily calorie intake of a person. Per Taubes' view on hormonal hunger regulation, you could drink 1.3 cups of olive oil and be satiated for an entire day. OR it would satiate you but your energy level would increase dramatically. It would be an interesting experiment. Hmmm...