Fat Facts

An Excerpt from The Low-Carb Gourmet: 250 Delicious and Satisfying Recipes

By Karen Barnaby

The reason that dollop of butter is salty is to help preserve it and to cover up the rancid taste. Yes, butter is good for us, but rancid butter is not. That flax oil in the refrigerator is liquid gold to some, but if it is rancid, it is worse than useless. We have to retrain our noses and taste buds to discern fresh, good fats from rancid, bad ones. This is one reason for using unsalted rather than salted butter.

This retraining can be done by finding stores that sell their stock quickly, that store their products properly and rotate their stock on the shelf so that no old products linger there. Also check the expiration dates on products to help you find the freshest product. Remember that the best fats come from fresh whole foods, so try making your own butter from some fresh, pure whipping cream. Add a bit of salt to taste, if you prefer it salty, and memorize the taste to compare with commercially prepared butter. If that is a bit too much work, just find the freshest frozen unsalted butter you can and taste that.

When dealing with vegetable oils, try grinding the seeds up and then smelling the fresh aroma. Again, if this is too much of a bother, just get a good smell of the oil when you first open the bottle or tin and memorize that fresh scent. As soon as you notice that the smell is off, get rid of it.

Try these delicious recipes from the book! Escarole Soup With Turkey Meatballs Grilled Flank Steak with Cumin Aioli My Brownies

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