What foods contain the highest levels of PUFAs?
Let’s talk about yet another reason for dumping all seed oils into the ash heap of history forever.
We have already discussed many reasons about why you should banish all of these oils from your life. But let’s talk about the bioenergetic reason.
Any oil that is liquid at room temperature is very low in saturated fats. Saturated fats are called such because all of the available spots for bonding are taken by hydrogen. The molecule is very stable and will not easily react or “oxidize” because it is “saturated” with hydrogen. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature and are the fats found in foods like butter, ghee, beef tallow, and coconut oil.
The human body is designed and fully adapted to using the strength, stability and durability of saturated fats to build itself. Practically every single structure in the body contains them, and it is used to make the brain, nerves, all the hormones and more. But for today’s discussion, the structure we are most concerned with are the cellular membranes.
Specifically the membranes of your mitochondria.
Your mitochondria are where all the action happens. They are where the cells get their immediate energy. When we talk about “metabolic health” we are really talking about the health of the mitochondria.
How many of these little organelles are we talking about?
Density of mitochondria per cell:
Muscle: 100 - 200
Heart: 5000
Brain: 10,000
Sperm/eggs: 100,000 - 200,000
Did you notice that’s per cell? So one brain cell contains up to 10,000 mitochondria each. The latest estimates I found calculate the number of neurons in the brain at over 100 billion! That doesn’t even count the 10-50 glial cells that support each neuron. So conservatively, we can calculate that the brain ALONE contains over one million billion mitochondria! And each of these mitochondria have membranes, inside and out, that when built with saturated fat as intended, work to maintain the proton gradient that is necessary to make ATP.
What happens when we consume polyunsaturated instead of saturated fats? Polyunsaturated fatty acids, or PUFAs, are liquid at temperature because they contain multiple double bonds that cause them to be flexible and unstable. Unfortunately, it also causes them to easily react (oxidize) and turn rancid.
When the body incorporates PUFAs into the mitochondrial membrane, it becomes too malleable. The proton gradient (across the membrane) that is so key to ATP production is damaged and inefficient. The membrane has more leaks and cracks, and the reactive oxygen species (ROS) build up even faster than normal inside the mitochondria because PUFAs oxidize so easily. This also affects the sodium/potassium pump that all cell membranes modulate. It will not work as efficiently which means more ATP will be required to even keep it functioning.
So instead of the tight, well-controlled membranes made with stable saturated fat, you get leaky batteries (sodium/potassium pump) and leaky dams (hydrogen ions/proton pump) with PUFAs. So think again about one million billion mitochondria in your brain neurons… and the prevalence of Alzheimer’s and dementia and other brain-related issues like depression and anxiety.
You can see why many scientists now believe that the amount of PUFAs in your cellular membranes is an accurate calculation of aging and lifespan. It is so impactful, it is even the primary determinant of lifespans across all species. And we haven’t even revisited what happens when your mitochondria actually try to BURN PUFAs for energy (we talked about this here). It’s a disaster.
What foods contain the highest levels of PUFAs?
Seed oils (aka “vegetable oils”): AVOID ALL OF THESE!
As I have explained before, these nasty machine lubricants are found everywhere in our foods. It is truly despicable how our country has allowed Big Food to poison its people. Here are just a few examples of where companies have used them (taken from an article by Dr. Cate Shanahan):
They are literally everywhere! This is why fresh, homemade whole foods need to be your primary source of nutrition.
Let’s get to the rest of the list of PUFA-high foods to limit:
Fatty fish
Fatty chicken and pork
Nuts and seeds
Try to limit your amount of PUFAs to 4g per 2000 Calories consumed (lower is better). You can use an app like Cronometer to keep track.
It takes anywhere from months (red blood cells, liver, skeletal muscle, etc) to YEARS (adipose tissue) to get PUFAs out of the membranes and replaced with saturated fats, so the sooner and more strict you are about it, the better!
You will feel the difference right away.