CrossFitters are a smart bunch that ask questions and really seek to understand. This is most evident in the gym as athletes ask how they can deadlift more, run faster, or get a better Fran time. But what about nutrition? Most athletes follow the paleo diet and understand the basic prescription. Other options are the primal approach or zone/paleo.  In order to understand how to best optimize your nutrition we will start at the beginning and consider the basic chemistry of the food we are using to fuel our bodies.  

Macronutrients 

What are macronutrients? According to wikipedia a macronutrient is "the class of chemical compounds humans consume in the largest quantities and which provide bulk energy are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats". For our purposes we are going to limit our consideration to carbohydrates, proteins and fats. We will leave our discussion of micronutrients to a different day.

Carbohydrates are compounds made up of types of sugars. Carbohydrates are classified by their number of sugar units: monosaccharides (such as glucose and fructose), disaccharides (such as sucrose and lactose), oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides (such as starch, glycogen, and cellulose).

Proteins are organic compounds that consist of the amino acids joined by peptide bonds. The body cannot manufacture some of the amino acids (termed essential amino acids); the diet must supply these. In nutrition, proteins are broken down through digestion by proteases back into free amino acid.

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein.

Fats consist of a glycerin molecule with three fatty acids attached. Fatty acids are unbranched hydrocarbon chains, connected by single bonds alone (saturated fatty acids) or by both double and single bonds (unsaturated fatty acids). Fats are needed to keep cell membranes functioning properly, to insulate body organs against shock, to keep body temperature stable, and to maintain healthy skin and hair. The body does not manufacture certain fatty acids (termed essential fatty acids) and the diet must supply these.

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Good Fat/Bad Fat: Quality Control

So if you are paleo you can eat whatever fat you want and not worry about the quality right? 

WRONG.  

When I first started eating paleo I didn't pay attention to the quality of the foods I was eating.  If it didn't include wheat or gluten I figured I was in the clear.  I was very far from the truth.  We need to be concerned not only with the types of food we are eating but the quality of the food as well.  (Quick shout out to the Lazy Caveman for spending an afternoon with me discussing this topic).  

Lets start our discussion with a look at fat.  Balanced Bites is a great resource with a multitude of information.  The following is an excerpt from their blog discussing safe cooking fats and oils.  Enjoy! 

What are the best fats or oils to use for cooking?

First and foremost let me remind you that there are a few different reasons why you will want to avoidcertain fats and oils for cooking, mainly seed oils.

1. Saturated fats are more STABLE than unsaturated fats. Quite literally, the chemical structure of saturated fats will not be easily damaged by things that will easily damage unsaturated fats, namely heat, light and air. Ever wonder why your high-quality olive oils are sold in a dark green glass or other opaque container? It’s to keep light from damaging the oil. Ever wonder why coconut oil doesn’t go “off” or smell rancid from sitting out on the counter without a lid on it but a vegetable oil like corn or soybean oil will? Air oxidizes those oils and makes them rancid. That is, damaged beyond the point that they are already just from the point of bottling. What separates the saturated fats from the unsaturated fats is the presence of a hydrogen bond at every instance of a carbon in the chemical structure of the fat. When there is a double bond in the chain of carbons, it creates a more unstable structure, which you can see when a fat is liquid at room temperature: the group of unstable fats together form a liquid versus the group of stable fats together which form a solid or semi-solid.

2. Seed oils are extremely high in monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) at varying ratios, all of which are prone to oxidation, PUFAs most significantly. You wouldn’t cook with fish oil, would you? Why would you want to cook with other oils that are very high in PUFAs? Even beyond PUFAs, MUFAs are pretty easy to damage as well (olive oil is very high in MUFAs). Re-read this post for more on why canola and other seed oils all made by expeller and chemical extraction methods are already rancid once they’re bottled as well as this post on how they’re made.

3. BEWARE: Many refined seed oils are marketed as having a high smoke point, therefore making them “ideal” choices for cooking. That’s not really the whole story. A higher smoke point is valid only if the fat or oil is fairly stable to begin with, and it may be useful in determining between two fats which is more ideal to use. That said, simply using the smoke point as a reason why you choose a cooking oil is an ineffective tool and will leave you with an already rancid oil on your hands (most likely, due to how it was initially processed – see links above and the video below on how canola oil is made below) and one that you’ll possibly damage further with the high heat of your skillet.

So, which fats ARE safe and recommended for cooking?

Here is a handy chart for you of common cooking fats & oils ranking them in order of best to worst for cooking (see below). Note that this is not a complete list of every possible fat or oil that exists. Nor is it my comprehensive list ofFats/Oils: Which to Eat & Which to Ditch that you can download here. I will likely update the Ranking of Common Cooking Fats chart as I come across more information or have more resources at my fingertips since some of my usual resources are currently out of reach. What you can do is use the chart as a tool and see where the fat or oil you find may fall within the chart based on it’s fatty acid composition as well as it’s smoke point using resources like the books “Know Your Fats” and “Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill” as well as websites like  http://wikipedia.com/ or others listing fatty acid composition of cooking fats/oils as a resource.

It’s safe to assume, however, that most naturally occurring saturated fats are safe to cook with, while most unsaturated fats (called oils because they are liquid at ambient room temperature) are unsafe to cook with and are most ideal for cold uses if appropriate for consumption at all. Remember that man made trans-fats are never healthy to eat: Crisco, Earth Balance, Smart Balance, Benecol, Margarine, Country Crock, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and the new one claiming to be a coconut product but it actually contains soybean oil… yeah, those are all a “never.”

Before you post a comment asking about this oil or that oil… USE THE RANKING SYSTEM here to figure out where it would fall. Those with the highest percentage of saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and with the highest smoke point rank at the top while those with the highest percentage of PUFAs and lowest smoke point at the bottom. Then, make the call for yourself whether you want to 1- cook with it, 2- use it cold- or 3- avoid it entirely.