Hi NJ,

Yes that was the wrong way around!

Warning - longish post!

I thought I'd bring this up again as I've spent years in my spare time on the internet trying to find some answers and the way lipid (fat) research seems to be going is quite surprising.

Most of you will have heard of the 3 categories of oil or fat: Monounsaturated, Polyunsaturated and the devil's stuff itself, Saturated oil or fat.

A little bit of history:

Up to about the 1950s nobody ate industrial seed-based oil such as soya, sunflower, rapeseed oil, cotton seed oil etc. etc. These products were used to make oil paints, varnish and were used as industrial lubricants. In those days people ate olive oil, lard, butter, beef tallow, palm oil and coconut oil.

At this time it was discovered that it was cheaper to use petroleum oil products to manufacture paints, varnish and lubricants. This left a big problem for the agriculture business as to what to do with these industrial seed oils. To cut a long story short, due to some appalling science we ended up eating these oils at the advice of our governments because they told us these oils were heart healthy, unlike the old fashioned saturated fats we used to eat.

The most recent research paints an entirely different picture. Polyunsaturated oils are becoming the "bad boy". Most of the poly oils we eat are classed as Omega 6. Too much of this stuff is implicated with heart disease, cancer and slow metabolism (that's not a good thing by the way).

Many scientists now agree that we need a ratio of omega6 to omega3 of between 4:1 and 1:1.
The standard American diet creates a ratio of at least 50:1 omega6 to omega3 poly oils, and a UK diet is hardly different.

On top of this, we are only talking about a recommended quantity of polyunsaturated oil in the region of about 6 grams daily in total.

The problem with excess polyunsaturated fats is of oxidation. These oils are highly unstable  and oxidise in the body very easily. This causes inflammation in the body hence the links to cancer and heart disease.

More research seems to be debunking the bad science of knocking saturated fats and how they will cause heart disease. This link has never been proven.

The facts are, the body converts excess sugars to saturated fat. Out bodily fat make up is similar to lard, i.e. about 50% monounsaturated and 50% saturated, very little polyunsaturates in the human body.

If these statements turn out to be true we should be wary of eating sunflower oil, rapeseed oil or any industrial vegetable seed oil that is high in polyunsaturated fats.

I switched recently to making curries with light olive oil that only contains 10% polyunsaturates.
That is the oil I now use for most frying.

I've also switched to 100% butter instead of a 70/30 butter/veg oil mix.
I use butter ghee for my dals. (Highly saturated)
I also use virgin coconut oil for some curries. (Highly saturated)

I'm planning to return to lard and beef tallow for making home made chips. Actually easier said than done as supply exceeds demand for quality lard and beef tallow.

I take an omega 3 fish oil supplement and I actively avoid anything that may contain omega 6 poly oils.

Bring on the old school sat fats!

Organ meat is all good healthy stuff if you can stomach it.

A few small chunks of kidney in a steak and kidney pie or pudding is about as far as I can go, unfortunately.

Paul

I tried Quorn mince a while back in a chilli con carne.
Never again, and it costs the same as beef! I wouldn't be surprised if they find out it is bad for you in the future.

I would stick to vegetables and pulses myself for veggie guests. What about that Indian cheese, panir I think it's called?

Quote from: Gav Iscon on April 01, 2013, 11:31 AM
On my list as well. There supposed to be  great for marinating as you're pushing the marinade in under pressure which sounds feasible to me.

You would have to freeze your meat/marinade mixture before sealing, otherwise the vacuum sealer will suck up the liquid and that won't do it any good. Unless you buy a

I've got one of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-James-Professional-Quality-Machine/dp/B001HBE5Y8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364757211&sr=8-2

It does the job ok.

Paul

Quote from: haldi on March 28, 2013, 08:00 PM
I checked out some of his youtube videos
There is no doubt that this chap is genuine
The first recipes he posted were perhaps not 100% accurate, but he clearly has knowledge and experience, which he is keen to share
I don't see why that's a problem
He doesn't have to post anything
and I , for one, am glad he still does

Me too Haldi, it's all good information for the forum. I don't know why people get so worked up about it. A few people have found their curry nirvana with his recipes. I'll try it myself soon.

Hi Chris, that's funny because most people grow cannabis with a setup like that 

The fan is a good idea for the reasons given already. You need ph and solution strength meters to do hydrophonics properly and these need to be recalibrated from time to time. And a thermometer is handy too.

It's probably easier to kill your plants stone dead with hydroponics versus soil, if you make a big mistake.

Good luck anyway.

Thanks for posting this, I'll give it a try next. I could do with something different and it might just be closer to what I'm looking for.

Paul

Understood Phil, I didn't read your post fully and stopped at the "insane" bit.