The Skinny on Fats
Posted by Alayne Gardner-Carimi on
For much of the latter half of the 20th century, dieticians eschewed fat in the human diet in the belief that all fats were created equal, and fats made people fat. Fortunately, this is now being corrected. According to the American Heart Association, dietary fats are essential to give your body energy and to support cell function. They also help protect your organs and help keep your body warm. Fats help your body absorb some nutrients and produce important hormones. Lack of fats in the diet can negatively impact skin, hair, brain function and immune systems.
Quality is Key
When incorporating fats into your diet, it's important to focus on quality. Opt for whole food sources of fats (cold pressed, virgin olive and nut/seed oils) rather than processed or refined options, to reap the full spectrum of benefits (vomFASS Madison makes that easy–they are the only kind we carry!). Additionally, as with most things in life, moderation is important.
Avoid products containing highly saturated and trans-fats or highly processed (high heat, expeller expressed or chemically extracted) oils. Unfortunately, many “vegetable oils and fats” one finds on the grocers’ shelves (corn, soy, canola, cottonseed, safflower, “light” olive oil, and commercial sunflower) have been subjected to these processes to maximize yields and minimize flavors, leaving them void of most nutrients except calories.
5 Pro Tips to Find and Use the Best Oils
Fresher is better. Fresh means significantly higher amounts of the benefiial nutrients and better flavors. We carry only the most recent harvest of oils. You can taste this in any of our oils. Packaged at the producer level into our proprietary packaging, our oils are protected from oxygen and light until we dispense them to you at the store level. Fresh oil has a more assertive flavor. These notes are treasured by connoisseurs because they indicate high quality, and by nutritionists because they're evidence of lots of healthful polyphenols.
From its beginnings, vomFASS has focused on providing only the best products for our customers. We source all of our oils (olive, nut and seed) from small batch producers. Not only do we know producers by name, we know the sources and quality of the fruits and nuts they use, often by plots and selected hand-harvested trees. The top products are packed by these producers and shipped directly to us. We can be assured we are providing the purest, highest quality products to you--which is why we are happy to provide tastings of our products daily.
Extra-virgin. By legal definition, extra-virgin oil must come from the first (usually the only) pressing of any fruit or nut, which must be accomplished with no added heat (at ambient temperatures no higher than around 80°F). This is not a guarantee that the oil will be the best, but at least it will probably not be among the worst. The term "first cold pressing," although widely used, is redundant. Bottles labeled just plain "olive oil" and "light olive oil" are refined oils.
Light and heat are the enemies of oils. Keep your precious bottles in a cool, dark environment, use a cupboard in an unheated pantry. Once open, we recommend you keep nut and seed oils in the refrigerator. Do not keep any oil over the oven or stove.
Whether you are sautéing, frying, marinading or finishing, vomFASS Madison has the right oil for whatever you are preparing for breakfast, lunch or dinner! Our lightly filtered traditional extra virgin olive oils, like Don Carlos Extra Virgin Olive Oil from organic olives, and our infused olive oils are lightly filtered and sauté-ready extra-virgin olive oil. And our cold-filtered grape seed and sunflower seed oils are fry-pan worthy. Our unfiltered Extra Virgin Olive Oils, as well as our nut and seed oils are perfect for finishing dishes, drizzling over oatmeal for breakfast or ice cream desserts.
🫒🌰Today is Some Day!🌰🫒
Use your high quality oils for your enjoyment and best life, and use them liberally! Often we save the good things for those special "some day" not realizing that today itself is special and the only one guarenteed to us. You deserve the goodness of quality and flavor today and every day.
Enjoy a hot baked potato, cracked open and topped with lots of the freshest, finest oils, a sprinkle of sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Try this Catalan breakfast: grilled rustic bread with a ripe tomato crushed on top, salted and peppered with a good glug of your favorite vomFASS Extra Virgin Olive Oil over it. Or try one of the easy weeknight recipes ⬇️ below ⬇️, or enjoy one from the recipe selection of our own vomFASS Madison website!
Win: Win
When you bring back your bottles (clean and dry) we'll refill them for you with fresh product, saving you money and the planet its resources.
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