a high percentage of saturated fat in the diet stimulates the liver to make LDL (bad) cholesterol in quantities greater than the body can remove from the circulation. The result is damage to arterial walls (atherosclerosis), impairment of the cardiovascular system, increased risk of premature death and disability from coronary heart disease, and reduction of healing capacity through restriction of blood flow.15
Dr. Weil considers beef fat the greatest threat to health. Cayce seems to have given that dubious honor to pork fat, followed by beef. In our little dietary Western, these are the really bad guys, especially when fried. For a healthier town, it’s best to run them out of Dodge.
Fat: The Good, the Bad, and the Really Ugly—Part II
Our previous installment focused on dietary fats from animal sources. Using a spaghetti western analogy, we found that some of these characters mean well, others are probably not so great, and still others pose a danger to our long-term existence. Now that those little dogies have ambled off into the sunset, it’s time to re-people our oater scenario with fats of vegetable origin. But vegetarians had better hold their horses before whooping it up. Good and bad fats abound in the plant kingdom as well, though it’s the artificially engineered ones that are truly nasty.
Cayce’s favorite oil is, of course, olive oil with occasional nods to wheat germ oil and peanut oil. This kind of fat is a good guy—the type just about anyone would want to invite to dinner at the rooming house:
Q. Would it be well to take a small quantity of olive oil daily?
A. Will be for most everyone, but well for this body.
2072-16
Because of its distinctive flavor, high quality (extra virgin) olive oil is most easily taken with meals and makes one of the best salad dressing ingredients around:
Q. Is it alright to take the olive oil and the yolk of the eggs as food?
A. It’s very good. These may be taken on the green vegetables if it is preferable to the body, for the taste of the body, but these taken in small quantities are always food for the system.
Q. How much olive oil on a salad at a meal?
A. Teaspoonful.
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If not including it with meals, another way to benefit from olive oil is to take it in tiny doses throughout the course of a day:
Very small doses of Olive Oil would be well to be taken. This should be taken often. Very small doses, meaning three to four drops to five drops at a time, not more than that. That is just enough to produce those activities in the gastric flow along throughout the aesophagus and through the upper portion of the stomach, so that the activities with same will make for the enlivening or a food to the walls of the digestive force and system itself.
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Many health researchers now share the preference of the readings for olive oil, which was undoubtedly atypical at the time. Noted holistic health advocate Dr. Andrew Weil is lavish in his praise:
Olive oil appears to be the best and safest of all edible fats. The body seems to have an easier time handling its predominant fatty acid, oleic acid, than any other fatty acid. Replacing saturated fat in the diet with olive oil leads to a reduction of bad cholesterol (whereas replacement with polyunsaturated vegetable oils lowers good cholesterol as well) . . . Moreover, in populations that use olive oil as their main cooking fat, rates of cardiovascular disease are lower than expected for the amount of total fat consumed, and rates of degenerative diseases and cancer are also lower than in many other populations.16
A major reason for olive oil’s safety is that it is monounsaturated. Although this is also true to some degree of peanut, canola, and avocado oils, Weil doesn’t trust them for various reasons. And there have been no known comments from either source regarding grape seed oil, another Mediterranean favorite said to have cholesterol lowering and balancing properties.
Cayce’s rare comments on peanut oil internally are in some cases even associated with olive oil:
Not good if taken by itself. If this is taken in combination with Olive Oil, or alternated, it would be very well.
1688-8
Some readings also advocate taking wheat germ oil for its high concentration of Vitamin E. While a diet rich in whole grains would ideally provide enough of this nutrient, in some cases a supplement is evidently needed to help strengthen the nerves, muscles, and reproductive system:
The vitamins that are needed, as indicated, are contained in . . . the Oil that will . . . produce a better regeneration of the activities of the system—it would be very good for everyone where there is a period close to the menopause, or adjustments of any nature—Germ Oil.
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Incidentally, there are a few sources of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids in the vegetable kingdom, though Cayce made no comments about them. They are the oils from flax seeds, hemp seeds, and a wild green known as purslane.
A highly regarded source of vegetable oils in the readings is certain kinds of nuts. The lighter, less oily nuts in particular are nutritional powerhouses providing vital elements in easily assimilated form when not overdone. Most importantly, along with other elements, they are a valuable source of energy:
We would add to the diet these nuts, but not some of the others: filberts, almonds, pecans; black walnuts, we would add in moderation—not too much—but especially almonds and filberts. These will supply elements, with the changes wrought, to build back energies for this body.
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. . . Nuts, fruits, whole wheat, and all of those that add energy to the blood and nerve supply.
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Nuts are also easy on the digestive system, have blood building properties, and are an important source of minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus:
Let the diet be of those properties that bring stimulation, yet are easily digested . . . Those of the juices of vegetables, and of fruits and nuts, may be varied according to the needs of the system and as assimilation takes place.
94-1
Let the diet be those that add building forces to system without giving too much strain on digestion. Rather the juices or broths from meat, than the meat itself. Do not use any pork or hog meat in any form. Rather vegetables, nuts, fruit. Do this in a consistent, persistent, manner. We will bring results and better conditions for this body.
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Let the diet be not of meats, as the basis or the greater portion of a meal—but rather those of the vegetables, fruits and nuts, as build both for the blood supply and the minerals of the system.
197-1
Well that sufficient calcium be taken . . . especially in nuts such as the filberts and almonds and the like.
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The oils and fiber found in nuts naturally aid the process of elimination
