hai ur doin it rong

Reading up on the paleo, through paleo hacks etc, I see that in the outline of the diet olive oil is a negative. My first reaction to this is "go die in a fire," and I have heard of other animal fats, butter, tallow, and coconut oil as alternatives so I guess I should keep my mind open. This was the highest ranked response on PH:

"...Given that there are so many good sources of animal fat to cook with, there's never any reason to cook with olive oil, but I'd still classify it as quasi paleo. If you had limited other sources of fat, getting a lot of calories from olive oil would still be a wise move.

Olive oil is mostly MUFA rather than SFA of course, but this shouldn't lead to too much of a difference in terms of cooking. After all, animal fat is often around 50% MUFA. The real problem with olive oil isn't the MUFA, it's the omega 6. By comparison, the much vaunted lard, is more MUFA than SFA and more omega 6 than olive oil. Olive oil also has a higher smoke point, drastically so if the ligter, rather than virgin oils. That said, cooking with olive oil, if you're going to consume it is a waste, if only because of the loss of the (possibly) beneficial polyphenols."

Now, it takes me a few minutes to dumb all this down, I'm guessing MUFA is monounsaturated fat acids, SFA is saturated fatty acids, and PUFA is polyunsaturated fat acids. There's also mention of omega 6, which is an unsaturated fatty acid. Ok, lets go over what I think I know off the top of my heard here.

Saturated fats are delicious and found in animal products
Unsaturated fats are found in vegetables and are also delicious.
Monounsaturated fats would be oils from peanuts, olives, and avocados
Polyunsaturated fats would be fish oil and flax seed.


At this point I have to go online and start researching the difference between all these fats, which is troubling, because I feel I should've come in to this challenge knowing this. Regarding Saturated Fats

I'll be back once I have a better understanding, but any links and recommended readings/explanations would be much appreciated.

If we're doing this, we may as well do it right.