One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 86

#86 – “Look for meat or poultry with plenty of fat, that's where the flavor comes from.  You can drain the fat off later.”

(Dad - 1930-something)

Fat gets a bad rap. Mom taught me that it’s not about what you eat; it’s about how much. Mom emphasized and science confirms, by the way, that fat provides the flavor while overindulgence provides the death.  Research also shows that despite the fact that Americans have steadily decreased their consumption of fat, they have also steadily increased their consumption of calories as a result of food manufacturers replacing the natural fats in foods with sugar or some other taste-altering substance.

Science also says, "The human body has a natural affinity for fat because it adds taste to food and, more importantly, it helps the body absorb key vitamins such as A, D, K, and E. Fat also adds a sense of satiety we get from foods." Have you noticed that many of the trendy diets we've seen over the past two decades have recommended pork rinds as a snack food? That's because they satisfy that hardwired instinct for fat, and are much less harmful than sugar and carbohydrates.

But honestly, the older I get the more I realize that we are really just rats in the laboratory of life. Each time science emerges with new breakthrough research I just label them the "theory de jour." Logic seems the only constant. If you eat too much, you'll get fat. It really is just that simple. Click On Read More Below...

Dad owned many grocery stores and was somewhat of an expert on meat. He always said to look for meat with lots of marbling for flavor.  It wasn’t the fat that killed him; it was the cigarettes.

I recently read an article in Discover Magazine about research being performed using python blood. Pythons rarely eat, but when they do eat they eat 1.5 times their own body weight, flooding their system with fat. But pythons have a chemical that is injected into their bloodstream that not only breaks down the fat to keep it from clogging their heart and arteries, and which also uniquely strengthens their heart muscles. My first thought when I read this was, wow, maybe we’ll soon have a medication that can strengthen my husbands deteriorating heart. My second thought was, wow, maybe we’ll soon have a medication that can process out all that yummy fat that I crave!

I have a theory that within my lifetime virtually every theory will be reversed and, so far, I’m right. Even Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, one of the most fundamental pillars of physics, is being proven wrong.

So, I'll just stick with mom's recommendation to look for meat or poultry with plenty of fat, and drain the fat off later.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers, and to all you gals who have been like a mother to friends and family!