Читать книгу Allergy-Proof Your Life - Michelle Schoffro Cook - Страница 34

Most packaged, processed, prepared, or fast foods actually contain unhealthy fats from margarine, lard or shortening, or rancid oils or from the processes in which they are prepared, such as frying or cooking at excessively high temperatures. These harmful fats contribute to inflammation in the body.

The typical diet, if it contains any healthy essential fatty acids, usually includes fats from meat and poultry or from nuts and seeds. Most diets are high in essential fatty acids known as omega-6s. Omega-6 fatty acids are found in the highest concentrations in corn, sunflower, and safflower oils, as well as in the meat of animals that eat a diet high in these fats. Although these fats are healthy in a ratio of one-to-one or even two-to-one of omega-6s to omega-3s (another essential fatty acid that the body must get from food), most people eat a twenty-to-one ratio. This excess worsens and even causes inflammation in the body. Eating too many omega-6 fatty acids in contrast to omega-3 fatty acids will produce substances in the body that will trigger or worsen existing inflammation. Yet that is exactly what the SAD contains: too many omega-6s and not enough omega-3 fatty acids.

Consuming oils like corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, or “vegetable oil,” which is usually a combination of corn, canola, and/or safflower oil, along with eating the meat of animals fed these fats in their diets, can worsen inflammation in the body, aggravate allergies, and negate the beneficial effects of healthy oils. Although many people know that fish (not the battered and fried variety) can be a healthier food choice thanks to its omega-3 fatty acid content, few people realize that if you eat a salad in which the dressing is made with one of the above-mentioned oils along with a piece of fatty fish, the oil in the salad will undo the benefits of eating the fish. Another example is tuna fish or sardines made into tuna salad or served on a sandwich alongside mayonnaise. The mayonnaise and the oils in the bread will counter any positive effects of eating the fish and aggravate low-grade inflammation in the body that leads to a wide range of possible health problems, including allergies and asthma.