Summary:

• The simplified view of cholesterol as "good" (HDL) or "bad" (LDL) has contributed to the continuing heart disease epidemic
• Not all LDL cholesterol is created equal. Only small, dense LDL particles are associated with heart disease, whereas large, buoyant LDL are either benign or may protect against heart disease.
• Replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates - which has been recommended by the American Heart Association for decades - reduces HDL and increases small, dense LDL, both of which are associated with increased risk of heart disease.
• Dietary cholesterol has a negligible effect on total blood LDL cholesterol levels. However, eating eggs every day reduces small, dense LDL, which in turn reduces risk of heart disease.
• The best way to lower small, dense LDL and protect yourself from heart disease is to eat fewer carbs (not fat and cholesterol), exercise and lose weight.

Not all cholesterol is created equal

By now most people have been exposed to the idea of "good" and "bad" cholesterol. It's yet another deeply ingrained cultural belief, such as the one I wrote about last week, that has been relentlessly driven into our heads for several decades.

But once we've put on our Healthy Skeptic goggles, which I know all of you fair readers have, we no longer simply believe what we're told by the medical establishment or mainstream media. Nor are we impressed or in any way swayed by the number of people that tell us something is true. After all, as Anatole France said, "Even if fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

Words to live by.

The oversimplified view of HDL cholesterol as "good" and LDL cholesterol as "bad" is not only incomplete, it has also directly contributed to the continuing heart disease epidemic worldwide.

But before we discover why, we first have to address another common misconception. LDL and HDL are not cholesterol. We refer to them as cholesterol, but they aren't. LDL (low density lipoprotein) and HDL (high density lipoprotein) are proteins that transport cholesterol through the blood. Cholesterol, like all fats, doesn't dissolve in water (or blood) so it must be transported through the blood by these lipoproteins. The names LDL and HDL refer to the different types of lipoproteins that transport cholesterol.

In the first article of this series we talked about the negative impact of 4 common food toxins: wheat, industrial seed oil, fructose and processed soy. In the second article we discussed which fats, carbohydrates and proteins are the best source of fuel for your body. In this article we're going to see the importance of eating real food.

"Real food" is:

* Whole, unprocessed and unrefined
* pasture-raised (a.k.a. grass-fed) and wild
* local, seasonal and organic

Let's look at each of these in turn.

Whole, processed and unrefined: if it comes in a bag or a box, don't eat it!

The introduction of industrial food processing has without a doubt had the most detrimental effect on our health of any other factor in the last few hundred years - and possibly in the entire history of humankind.

Food refining has brought us all four of the food toxins destroying our health: white flour, white sugar & HFCS, industrial seed oils and processed soy products. It has also brought us chemical additives and preservatives, some with known negative effects and others with effects still unknown.

New research is revealing the harm these newfangled processed foods have on us almost every day. Just yesterday a study was published demonstrating that emulsifiers used in packaged foods ranging from mayonnaise to bread to ice cream increase intestinal permeability ("leaky gut") and cause a chain reaction of inflammation and autoimmune disease.

Another study showed that diet soda consumption increases your risk of stroke and causes kidney damage, possibly because of the phosphoric acid used as an acidifying agent to give colas their tangy flavor.

To avoid the harm caused by processed and refined foods, a good general rule is "if it comes in a bag or a box, don't eat it."

Of course not all foods that come in bags and boxes are harmful, so this isn't meant to be taken literally. It's just a helpful guideline. Butter is often packaged in a box, and Trader Joe's (for some strange reason) packages vegetables in sealed plastic bags. That doesn't mean you shouldn't eat butter and vegetables.

But in general, if you follow this guideline, you'll avoid most common food toxins. And that's more than half the battle.

I grew up in eastern Washington in the 70s. Our family took road trips to Seattle every summer.

I can still remember that sinking feeling of seeing trash on the side of the highway. I did not question it. This is what people did. Good-natured people were throwing their trash out their windows. I wondered why people would make the world a messy place. It was not until the Native American showed up on our television screens that behaviors began changing. I could not stand seeing this steward of nature crying because of the condition of our landscape. At the end of the commercial he says, "People start pollution and people can stop it." It took this public service announcement to change the status quo. It educated and informed the people on preserving the beauty of our nation.

This same movement is beginning to take place in relation to sexual abuse. When Oprah got on board this past year, a social revolution started. The country is starting to take notice and people are talking about and becoming informed on facts regarding the impact of sexual abuse. It will take entire communities to stand up against this epidemic. We will need to change laws, enforce sentences and put away perpetrators in order to keep our children safe. Parents can learn to be powerful in protecting their children and learn to ask the necessary questions in order to keep their kids safe.

In an unusual scenario that raises questions of conflict of interest, a company that conducts research on behalf of the pesticide industry has paid a U.S. government agency to help prove some controversial chemicals are safe.

The company, Exponent Inc., based in Menlo Park, Calif., is known for its scientific research on behalf of corporate clients facing product liability concerns. In this case, Exponent is trying to refute research showing that even a small amount of combined exposure to two agricultural chemicals, maneb, a fungicide, and paraquat, an herbicide, can raise the risk of Parkinson's disease, a progressive disorder of the central nervous system.

Exponent is listed as a member of CropLife America, the trade group that represents pesticide manufacturers, and also has worked regularly for Syngenta, which makes paraquat.

Today several million American parents are carrying the new scarlet letter. No, they didn't sin or feel wracked by guilt, two of the three themes that run through Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel. They have suffered from trying to protect their newborn children from disease and the pressures of an omnipresent government mandate, which is as equally restrictive and punishing with passive aggression as that which oppressed Hester Prynne with its religious dogma.

The novel's third theme, that of legalism, is what continues to haunt American parents today. Today, legalism manifests in big government dictates on healthcare in general, and vaccine directives in particular.

Legalism is the driving force behind a powerful new book with a unique, provocative view on the autism-vaccine flashpoint. Big Pharma, bigger government, and a pliable mainstream media have been trying to squelch and censor the right to vaccine choice for the past decade.

Books like Vaccine Epidemic, combined with the social networking power of the Web, make it impossible for the apocryphal CDC and NIH, the government agencies tasked with being the guardians of public health, to control and suppress all information or from putting the dark truths back in Pandora's box.

THOUSANDS of British women are so desperate for a bigger bottom they are risking their lives by taking pills designed to fatten up chickens.

The poultry tablets are packed with hormones that have been linked to breast cancer and liver problems in humans.

Originally they were used by farmers to bulk up chickens - but it was discovered that when taken by women they enhance the size of thighs, hips and bottom.

Now scores of online sites are also offering "herbal" versions of the tablets with names like Star Curves, Big Beautiful Butt Formula, and Brand New Booty pills.

They are featured on sites including Amazon, eBay and Facebook and are also advertised on reality TV star Kim Kardashian's blog.

So many times when I train competitors or clients, the first fat I add to their diet is coconut oil. Usually they look at me dumbfounded and I get "Why" or "What the hell". Well to clear that up we are going to go over the many health benefits of it and how it relates to you.

The health benefits of coconut oil include hair and skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, cardiac problems, dental care, and bone strength. Coconut oil is largely comprised of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and has properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-fungal, antibacterial, soothing, plus many more.

If you had a choice of remedies for acne, would you choose lauric-acid-filled nanobombs delivered by gold nanoparticles straight to the membrane of the offending acne bacteria? Or would you choose to apply coconut oil to your face and let nature take its course?

Lauric acid is only one of the antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral substances in coconut oil. If you chose the nanobombs, go here.

One would wonder why anyone would choose a medication using nanoparticles to deliver part of a natural substance (coconut oil) that contains even more ingredients with skin-healing properties: capric acid and vitamin E. Although nanoparticles are now being used to deliver medications to certain bodily sites, their long-term side effects are little-known.

Those light-emitting diodes marketed as safe, environmentally preferable alternatives to traditional lightbulbs actually contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially hazardous substances, according to newly published research.

"LEDs are touted as the next generation of lighting. But as we try to find better products that do not deplete energy resources or contribute to global warming, we have to be vigilant about the toxicity hazards of those marketed as replacements," said Oladele Ogunseitan, chair of UC Irvine's Department of Population Health & Disease Prevention.

Our culture has a phobia about animal fat. The horrid nutritional guidelines just issued by the U.S. government tell us to eat meat only occasionally, and eat only lean meat. This is truly a shame, because animal fat from pastured animals contains many vital nutrients that are easily absorbed and hard to get elsewhere. Animal fat from grassfed animals also gives great taste, tenderness, and satisfaction (unlike the lumpy, greasy fat so prevalent in factory meat).

All grassfed meat is leaner than factory meat. Many producers advertise how lean their grassfed meat is. Some grassfed meat is much leaner, and some contains more fat. So which is better? For our ancestors, the choice was simple. Fat meat was desirable and cherished - lean meat was eaten to avoid starvation or thrown to the dogs.

For me, the answer is also simple. Most of the nutrients in grassfed beef are in the fat. Fattier cuts of grassfed meat have more flavor and come out more tender. The fattier the better, when it comes to grassfed meat.