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Omega Diet: Day Two

 In the second part of the revolutionary new diet, The Omega Diet, author Judith Wills tells how her eating plan can put you back on the right track.
Plus we give you days 5-8 of the 14-day plan, with more delicious recipes.

Both dieters and weight-watchers have been led to believe that fat is 'bad'. Many of us have therefore resolutely followed a fat-free or low-fat path whenever possible. But not only is a very low-fat diet unpalatable, I have also always instinctively felt - even when the research wasn't there to back up my feelings - that as fat was a natural part of many of our most basic foods, it couldn't possibly be as bad for us as was made out.

I knew that to try to avoid fat at all costs wasn't a balanced or healthy way to eat. And I knew that some of nature's most glorious foods, such as olive oil, fish, nuts, seeds and avocados, were high in fat. Now there is enough evidence to turn on its head the idea of the low-fat diet as the right way to slimness and health.

We also know that the experts did almost certainly get one huge area of advice on fat consumption wrong. Throughout the 1990s, the advice was not to just to cut fat intake, but to replace the saturated fats (found mostly in animal and dairy produce) with polyunsaturated oils such as corn and sunflower oil.

Then evidence began to amass that people who ate high amounts of corn and sunflower oils and low amounts of saturated fat had just as high a death rate as those who did the opposite, even though deaths from heart disease were lower. They just died from other things, especially increased rates of cancer.

Meanwhile in the Western world, other ills were on the increase - diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer's, asthma and depression, for example. Amazingly it has now been found that far from helping our general health, our huge intake of 'modern' oils may actually be one of the main problems!

The Omega Diet will help you to eat the right kind of fats in the right balance and the right quantities both for health and for help with slimming.

Bad fats

The basic advice on consumption of saturated fat hasn't changed. A high intake of saturates - found in greatest quantities in full-fat dairy produce, fatty cuts of meat, meat and poultry skin and eggs - is still compellingly linked with heart disease, stroke and related problems, or precursors such as obesity and high blood pressure.

We eat too many manufactured foods - such as cakes, pies, takeaways, packet goods, pizzas etc - and too many dairy products, all high in saturates, and we eat too much.

The same goes for trans fats, fats that start out before the manufacturing process as polyunsaturates but are altered and hardened during processing. Many experts believe that trans fats are actually worse for us than saturated fats, and many highly processed foods labelled 'low in saturates' are actually high in trans fats. Margarines and many biscuits, cakes and other baked goods are high in trans fats.

In addition, goods high in saturates or trans fats tend to be low on other natural nutrients such as dietary fibre, naturally occurring vitamins etc. Saturates may also negate the effects of the 'good' fats.

Good fats

Polyunsaturates are fats found in high quantities in oils extracted from plants such as corn, sunflower and safflower. They were touted as good for you because they had a positive effect on lowering cholesterol in the blood, thus helping prevent coronary heart disease and stroke. While this theory remains true, there is another side of the coin.

The group of fatty acids known as polyunsaturates cn be divided into two families: the omega-6s and the omega-3s. All the polyunsaturated oils we have been encouraged to use in our diets are those that contain a much higher proportion of omega-6s than omega-3s.

It is now known that a diet high in omega-6s is linked with an increased risk of cancer and can actually increase deposits of oxidised cholesterol on the arterial walls, increasing the risk of atherosclerosis, stroke and disease. This is because these polyunsaturates are highly prone to oxidation, caused by heat, light and exposure to oxygen, conditions typical in a kitchen.

What's more, cooking at high temperatures means that all the good effect of the oil lowering cholesterol is cancelled out because you have oxidised the oil.

A high intake of omega-6 oils (and of saturated and trans fats) also blocks the good work of the omega-3 oils. Recent findings have revealed that Omega-3 oils prevent and slow down the growth of tumours, boost our immune systems, fight infection, improve the symptoms of arthritis and other inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's disease, asthma and even gingivitis, help diabetes, prevent or relieve depression, lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease, dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit disorder and other behavourial problems in children, skin complaints, and the healthy brain development of babies.

We do need some omega-6s fats in our diet. With the omega-3s, they have much everyday hard work to do, helping to produce hormones for good health and helping with wound healing, liver and kidney function, healthy skin and hair, reproduction and good growth and a healthy nervous system. These roles of essential fatty acids have been known for some time. But the importance of the balance of intake of the two is a newer area of research.

Some estimates say we have ben eating as much as 20 times more omega-6 than omega-3, so what we need to do is increase omega-3s in our diet and decrease omega-6s while not increasing the overall level of polyunsaturates. The Omega diet can do this.

Apart from the benefits already mentioned, omega-3 fats almost certainly have an important role to play in slimming and weight maintenance. Omega-3s seem to help regulate the body's blood sugar levels by helping to increase insulin sensitivity.

This means that hunger can be kept at bay. Omega-3s also work by increasing our metabolic rate so that more fat and glucose are burned and less deposited as body fat. In addition, they increase our energy levels and encourage us to take more exercise, which in turn builds more lean tissue (muscle), which in turn increases our metabolic rate even more, as muscle cells are the most metabolically active in our bodies.

All this beneficial activity can be blocked by eating too many omega-6s, which is why it is essential to get the balance between omega-6s and omega-3s right. The Omega Diet can do this.

Lastly, the optimum diet for health is now thought to be one that contains adequate mono-unsaturates, found in olive oil, rapeseed oil, some nuts such as macadamias, hazelnuts, almonds and Brazils, and avocados, meats, pulses, seeds and vegetables.

Mono-unsaturated fats lower bad cholesterol, offer protection against colon and breast cancers, are high in vitamin E, the anti-oxidant which is in shortfall in many Western diets, and are safer to use for cooking because they don't oxidise like the polysaturates do and therefore are much better for using at high temperatures - you will be using oils high in mono-unsaturated fats, such as good quality, extra virgin olive oil, for cooking on the Omega Diet.

Abridged extract from The Omega Diet by Judith Wills (Headline Publishing, £9.99).
Copyright Judith Wills 2001.

TOMORROW: OMEGA FREEFORM DIET - HOW TO PERSONALISE YOUR EATING PLAN
PLUS DAYS 9-11 OF THE OMEGA DIET, WITH MORE DELICIOUS RECIPES.