Edgar Cayce's Everyday Health. Carol Ann Baraff

      In contrast, a hazardous form of fat is the grease or tallow from meat. Although various types of meat are themselves often advised, so is keeping them lean in most cases:

      . . . Eat little meats, and those that are taken should be of sinew rather than fats . . .

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      And in the matter of the diet, keep away from too much grease or too much of any foods cooked in quantities of grease—whether it be the fat of hog, sheep, beef or fowl! But rather use the lean portions and those that will make for body-building forces throughout. Fish and fowl are the preferable meats. No raw meat, and very little ever of hog meat. Only bacon.

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      Clearly, the only good bacon (if that) is the kind where most of the fat is burned off:

      . . . to be sure, breakfast bacon may be taken if it is prepared very crisp without much of the fat or grease in same.

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      This same principle of leanness applies to juices and broths as well:

      Noon meals would be preferably the meat juices, rather than the broths—but little or no fat included in same when the juices are being taken from same.

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      It also rules out that old southern practice of greasing up perfectly good greens:

      Plenty of green vegetables but not cooked in fat; rather in their own juices.

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      . . . Do not use bacon or fats in cooking the vegetables, for this body, for these tend to add to distresses in those directions of this segregation and breaking of cellular forces throughout the system.

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      If meat fats, especially of pork and beef, are bad for us, there is one thing that can make them even worse. The readings are categorically opposed to fried foods of all kinds, especially where meat fats are involved:

      . . . No fried meat, no fried foods at any time for the body.

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      . . . Do not have fried food, such as steak or very fat roasts—they are detrimental to the better eliminations from the system.

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      . . . No red meat; no fried meat nor fried food of any kind; not even boiled fat meat. But fish, fowl, lamb or the like may be taken.

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      As mentioned earlier, one way that fats vary is in their degree of saturation. Chemically, fats are made up of fatty acids—chains of carbon atoms with varying numbers of hydrogen atoms attached. The more plentiful hydrogen atoms become, the greater the saturation, so saturation levels can range from mono (one double bond in the chain) to poly (two or more double bonds). Highly saturated fats such as those found in beef pose a variety of threats to health, as Dr. Weil attests:

      Evidence for the health risks of saturated fat is overwhelming. In most people, 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.

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      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.

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      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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