Avocado oil to Extra Virgin Olive Oil/Ghee/Coconut Oil

82% of all Avocado oil is either rancid or mixed with other oils. Because avocado oil is a fairly new item on the market there are no standards to determine if the oil is up to standard and pure.

https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study-finds-82-percent-avocado-oil-rancid-or-mixed-other-oils

Vegetable oils(Sunflower/Canola/Grape seed/Soybean/Sesame/Palm) to Extra Virgin Olive Oil/Ghee/Coconut Oil

This is an overlooked area because of how much the western world pushed for a change in oil use in the 20th century. With the decrease in lard and butter the world saw a two-fold increase in the intake of linoleic acid. The main omega-6 polyunsaturated fat is found in vegetable oils, which now makes up around 8-10% of total energy intake in the Western world. There has been a correlation between linoleic acid found in adipose tissue to a reliable marker positively associated with coronary heart disease. Interestingly enough increasing ones Omega-3 intake tends to be inversely related to CAD (coronary artery disease). Numerous lines of evidence show that the linoleic acid found in these oils promotes oxidative stress, oxidized LDL, chronic low-grade inflammation and atherosclerosis.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196963/

White Sugar to Honey/Maple Syrup/Agave

To most of you this may seem like a no-brainer however, this form of sucrose is found in 75% of all packaged foods. The Glycemic Index in most granulated sugars are very high and leads to a rapid spike in insulin. Refined sugars come from sugar cane or sugar beets which are processed to extract sugar. This processed sugar is the most readily and easiest absorbed in our body which is what makes its GI score so high. We want sugar to be released as slowly as possible in our body. So fruit, whole milk, cheeses, carbohydrates have sugar in them but come in its natural form. This natural form is accompanied with fiber, and in many cases a whole different form of sugar, like fructose for example. This leads to a lower GI score.

Low-fat, fat-free anything to whole-fat products

The marketing of the “low-fat/fat-free” industry is criminal. In the 20th century and even into the early 00s it was fat that was the culprit to our health crisis. The multi-billion dollar food industry propelled by the ever-increasing caloric surplus in the average consumer would become disabled if headlines became, “Americans are eating too much and therefore everyone is getting sick”. Rather the headlines were, “fat is the culprit to the national health crisis” so lets market low-fat/fat-free foods! Guess what they did…they synthetically decreased fat in products and increased the sugar, because without the fat and no added sugar the milk/cheese tasted like water and gelatin. Here is a link to a study that connected this. So they took a relatively healthy product like cheese for example synthetically changed the macros to fit this new story and diminished the healthy aspect of the product. Saturated fat from dairy in a normal amount is good for you! A study conducted in 2020 found that eating full-fat yogurt and cheese can actually protect you from cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The study also found that there is not enough evidence to promote low-fat and fat-free dairy. What bothers me the most about this situation is that we had no evidence that fat was the perpetrator and yet our health experts pointed toward a diet that would only propel the new market of low-fat/fat-free products. The key to this was, Americans are eating too much food. The average daily caloric intake in 1961 was 2,880, today the average American eats 3,600. There are health experts that point at this, but unfortunately the ones that steal the spotlight are corrupt experts that point at easy solutions that are marketable.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7231591/

Fish oil to trusted fish oil

A study conducted in 2022 found that 1/6 fish oil supplements contained rancid oil. How do we avoid buying fish oils that have high values of arsenic and toxicity? The first line of defense is the smell/taste test, contrary to popular belief, ingesting fish oil in liquid form should not be a painful matter. If the oil has a distinct fishy smell and taste, chances are it’s oxidized and not good. The second thing you can do is to find your fish oil’s Certificate of Analysis. This is a legal 3rd party document that should have the information regarding its biological components. Such as this one. The markers to check the freshness of the brands oil are, Peroxide(5>mEq/kg), Aniside(20>mEq/kg), Acid(3>mg). The toxin values you need to look at are, PCBs(<.01mg/kg), Dioxin(<2pg/g), Mercury(<0.005mg/kg), Lead(<0.025mg/kg), Arsenic(<0.1mg/kg), Cadmium(<0.005mg/kg). Then, you can play with the EPA:DHA ratio. For most poeple who are looking to get the anti-inflammatory benefits to the fish-oil they go for a 2(EPA) to 1(DHA) ratio. Whereas those using fish oil for its brain health properties tend to increase DHA above EPA. A place that you can check the properties of a fish oil you are using is here.