Tip of the month: ehope is a non-profit organization that forms caregiver support networks to provide the non-medical, physical, social and emotional support for patients at no cost. Check it out if you know someone who needs this sort of help or if you can donate time for someone in your vicinity: http://ehope.nu/defaultM.aspx

Food Focus: Oils and Fats

Can it get any more confusing? Saturated, unsaturated, poly-unsaturated, mon-unsaturated, hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated, or transfats – which oils are which? Which are “high heat”? Which need fridge storage, which not?

Briefly, our ancestors ate the fats available where they were: blubber in the Arctic, olive oil around the Mediterranean, butter in northern Europe, coconut oil in southern India, and so on. For us, who can whistle up almost any food the globe offers, the choices may be too abundant. Even medical researchers disagree to a considerable extent. Consensus, however, has arrived in the black-balling of transfats, i.e., hydrogenated oil. If you see the word “hydrogenated” on the label, don’t buy it.

Saturated fat, which is hard at room temperature, can be used for cooking, as it only goes rancid at extreme temperatures: butter, lard, coconut oil, etc. A minority of authorities claim that these fats are not necessarily harmful. Coconut oil, for instance, contains -- as does breast milk -- lauric acid, a strong support for the immune system.

Olive oil, a mono-unsaturate that’s liquid at room temper-ature, is a good choice for salad dressing. Flax oil, much in the nutrition news these days for providing the precious omega-3 fatty acids generally deficient in our modern diet, can be used for salads, too, but is more fragile and must be kept refrigerated. Sesame is another tasty salad oil.