Wax, good fat vs bad fat is very controvesrsial. What for you are good/bad fats?

Good fats are avocado and nuts, which break down the bad fat such as white bread, white rice etc.

Why controversial?

I'd say good fats are extra virgin olive oil, ghee, fish oil, flax oil, the fats you get in nuts and seeds, coconut oil/milk. The bad ones are all the hydrogenated, fake processed crap that actually often gets marketed as good - Sunflower oil, vegetable oil (especially when you don't know what's in it), etc. The best book ever on healthy eating is The Diet Cure by Julia Ross - it did actually change my life (even though it's all gone out the window in the past year). She was years ahead of Gillian Mcwhatsherface .

Oh dear, is this going to turn into a diet thread?

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White bread and rice aren't fats!

JB

I think you will find that you can no longer refer to them as 'bad fats'.

The correct term is 'calorifically challenged fats'.

Nice one, Davster. I had a plague of tiny little ants in my kitchen last year and would squash them with my thumb - they haven't come back

Adele.

PS Apologies to Buddhist, Jains or others who think this is cruel, but the idea of creepy crawlies on my food is too horrible to contemplate, and if your belief in reincarnation is right, I'll probably get the squashing I deserve in the next life (though I already feel like I've had one in this.)

Skip,
oh dear, I'm sorry to have brought up the diet thing, but someone did ask, and weight was a problem for me, and looking into fats was the answer! But for decades it's been such a see-saw about good and bad fats. You mentioned coconut oil; that was my solution. I have a very slow metabolism and I was putting onweight from year to year; I decided to do something about it two years ago and I discovered that coocnut oil, actually speeds up your metabolism (there are a couple of books about this) I didn't believe it but it worked. I immediately lost 20 pounds with no hassle and have kept it off - even though I am still sedentary and the most exercize i do is walking the dog in the park three times a day. It's worth investigating.

I also use olive oil and butter - strictly no other vegetable oils which actually sloe down the metabolism (I believe that's the whole obesity problem ina nutshell), especially hydrogenated.

It's hard to get though - you have to order it over the internet and it's quite expensive. The cheap coconut oil from ethnic shops is not the best.

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Also fish oils - in fact, everything you say. And avocado.

Ads, the ants surely thought you woz some kind of Goddess from On High anyway, so were probably more than willing to make the sacrifice

And as fer coconut oil, I'm sure I read that woz tres bad for you somewhere, coz the fat saturates or sommik but basically is bad for cholestrial.

Not that I'm a sad case/diet freak, but I just happened to pick that up. I don't care if people make coconut oil pies and wipe the stuff all over themselves before enjoying a greasy white bread and rice fritter complete with battered Mars Bar.

White rice and white bread are not fats, you're right. I am just showing myself up as I only began my diet, and nutrition learning curve three weeks ago, so please forgive my stupidity. I promise not to do it again. Not until the next time.

Coconut oil sounds digusting, but handy. I'll have to get some.

JB

Coconut Oil was made out to be a bad fat for decades - that's one of the issues people had with it. That was just a myth. Coconut oil is the healthiest fat you can have, better even than olive oil.
The whole saturated fat thing is a myth - saturated fats are actually the good fats; they're the ones people have always used, before heart disease and obesity were problems. They are natural fats the body needs. Coconut oil has been used for thousands of yeasr inthe tropics - people there have diets very high in coocnut oil - and have been free of heart disease and other civilisation diseases.
Coconut oil was made out to be bad buy the guys marketing sunflower oil and the like. Bu I think I;ve gone off topic long enough for today! If you;re intersted do some www research. It's very interesting. In particular, the Weston A Price website:
www.westonaprice.org, the page Know Your Fats.

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ps it's not disgusting at all! It's very fine, almost like water, you can eat it right off the spoon, and tastes and smells of coocnut! (that is, the fresh virgin kind)

I dunno Aruna, sounds to me like you work in the coconut sales business. I know your type, always dashing up the inside lane, undertaking and overtaking poor unsuspecting penniless Nissan Micra owners in your heew-age Beamer, suitcases bulging with oversized nuts...

Just kiddin (no shit Dav) - I bow down to your superior knowledge of fat, nuts and, er, virgins.

And oils too.

And, for the record, I like coconuts.

Especially Bounties.

Mmmmm...

Yes, i do tend to wax lyrical ()and salesmanish!) when it comes tococonut oil. Wish I could do the same for my writing! My biggest problem ther is the whole promotion thing.
I've just finished what I hope is my last revision and am sending the ful of to an agent who has asde for it tomorrow or the day after. Wish me luck. At the moment I am quite ocnvinced the whole thing is trite, shallow crap.

Good luck Aruna, and I'm sure the one thing it isn't is crap.

If an agent has asked for it, then its more than good. I bet its better than a whole warehouse full of lightly oiled coconuts.

Bestest best luck gal!

I always end up thinking that what i've written is crap, usually after the 5th edit. The thing is, we writer's lack objectivity to our own art, that's the thing.

It's a mystery. Up there with the one about Dav's disappearing zombies...

I don't like coconuts. Normally, I have no problem with hairy, oval shaped objects, but I just can't eat a coconut.

JB

Yep, agree with all that, Aruna. Julia Ross says that about coconut fat - that it speeds up metabolism. I love coconut milk - it's good in smoothies and stuff. hey, I admit I have had many phases of being (in Dav's words) a sad case/diet freak, but only because I've got a screwed up digestive system and am allergic loads of stuff! Think I need to re-visit it all to complement the Astanga.

Hey, maybe some of us can co-write a book: the writer's guide to avoiding a fat arse. The answer lies in coconut milk, avacados, ant squishing, electric shock therapy and erm... sitting in rooms full of dogs.

Dav, I had a Nissan Micra once, and although it did have a habit of breaking down on the M6 and spontaneously combusting in Hemel Hempstead carparks (and although I was penniless), no bugger could overtake me in it - bulging oversized nuts or not.

Going back to the original topic: I don't think I want to stay in and finish my book just in hope of making loadsamoney from it. It's more kind of for myself after years of neglecting my creative side (because of the going out 4 nights a week, etc.!).

Or maybe it's all part of getting older. OK, I'll stop fighting the flab! Pass some of that grey fluff, Beads!

I've mentioned this before somewhere on this site, but one of my MA tutors, Sara Maitland used to go off on 'silences', where she'd live in complete solitude for weeks on end and go and live in a hut somewhere with no human contact at all. She said she would hallucinate and stuff after a while.

Cath

To get back to the original topic - I actually wrote a long answer right at the start but for some reason when I posted it I got the "this website does not exist" screen. Damn!

I am a natural hermit. I normally live for weeks, sometimes months, without any social contact beyond my two children (aged 19 and 14), shopkeeres etc, and little chats with people walking their dogs in the park; and also without phoning anyone, no parties etc. I love solitude. I love an empty house, and much as I love my kids, retirement for me would mean the joy of being completely alone for weeks and weeks, in India, far away from the hustle and bustle of modern life - which I actually can't stand. Want to punish me? Take me to a pub! I once went to a screenwriters meeting in a Soho pub and I left after 5 minutes - couldn't stand it.

Then again, I am 54 and have had a pretty exciting life, especially when I was young. I settled down late, and I think al that early experience is my mine for writing. So don't isolate yourself to much; you need humans!