I got to thinking about fats. I compared three kinds here and try to figure out why NutritionData says olive oil is strongly anti-inflammatory and beef suet is moderately inflammatory.

Here are the pages for each fat:
olive oil
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fats-and-oils/509/2
beef tallow
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fats-and-oils/482/2
beef suet
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/beef-products/3478/2

Now compare the inflammation factor figures of each. Olive oil scores 526, tallow -98 and suet -209. So what is the determining factor for inflammation? Let's see, is it cholesterol? No, since it's higher in tallow than in suet. Is it PUFA omega 6? No, since it's 3x-4x higher in olive oil than in the other two fats. Is it PUFA omega 3? No, since it's higher in suet than in the others. Is it the vitamins and minerals? No, since there's more vitamins in suet than in the other two. Is it protein? No, since olive oil contains zero while suet contains 1.5g/100g. So what is it then? It can only be one of two things, saturated fat or phytosterols.

I looked up phytosterols and that's some nasty stuff. I doubt that's what NutritionData base their inflammation scores on. No, I think it's all about saturated fat. Olive oil: 13.8g/100g; tallow: 49.8g/100g; suet: 52.3g/100g. But even then, the proportions don't match: 13.8/526, 49.8/-98, 52.3/-209. So what's the determining factor? I dunno. Some guy at a desk, prolly.

But besides this inconsistent inflammation ladder on NutritionData, what do you think about olive oil now that you know that it contains more omega 6 and less omega 3 than beef suet, and that the o3/o6 ratio is greater (1:12.8) than either tallow (1:5.1) or suet (1:2.5)? Do you think it's still better?

That's right, beef suet has a o3/o6 ratio of 1:2.5

And they say beef fat has a bad PUFA ratio. And they say olive oil is better because it contains less saturated fat and more monounsaturated fat. By the way, for MUFA, there's more in olive oil than the other two. Maybe that's where the inflammation difference comes from. But I doubt going from 73g to 41g to 31 will bring the score down from 526 to -98 to -209 especially considering the PUFA numbers.

That is great, Martin. I use Fitday, and on my ZC WOE my PUFA is less than 2%, just the natural amount in raw ground beef. I like your scientific bent.

The olive oil I get here in Chile is 6% PUFA, so I use it. I also use animal fat though. Personally I don't really care as long as my overall n-6 intake isn't that high. Having said that I eat fish and nuts, but always with a lot of animal fat (tallow mostly, also grass-fed butter).

So no, I don't think it matters really, as long as you're not downing vegetable oil (ugh).

I would say neither olive oil nor tallow are inflammatory in my experience.

I'm looking at the NutritionData FAQ about this inflammation factor scale. Apparently, it's based on the "independent work" of one Monica Reinagel. She's a nutritionist apparently and wrote a book called The Inflammation Free Diet Plan. Obviously, she's wants to sell that book but here's her website so we can see that she doesn't tell us what this inflammation factor actually is:
http://inflammationfactor.com/


http://www.nutritiondata.com/help/faq


http://inflammationfactor.com/rating_system.php

Well, I've gone through all that and still haven't figured out how olive oil can score better on the IF scale when it scores lower on virtually all the underlying parameters. I'll see if I can stir the pot at her blog.

You want the truth? I don't care so much about these things anymore. I got way too obsessed about these things when I was on my ZC path. I'm now back to olive oil and my body loves it, i.e. losing weight, feeling great!

I don't discard the fat on any piece of meat though (e.g. I binge on crispy chicken skin), but at the same time I don't render any fat anymore (YAY). I just buy the 1L glass bottle of olive oil and some butter

Well, I'm not obsessed, not yet. Far from it, I'm bored and wanted to discuss something interesting. But now that I've digged a little deeper into the matter, I'm beginning to think that this IF scale is just somebody's (a single person actually) idea of inflammation. And she doesn't even tell us what that scale consists of unless we buy her book. Well OK, she did do the research, or so she claims. So she should get paid for the work, if work she did. But then again, I'd like to inspect the work before I sign the check, not the other way around.

I asked a question on her blog "Ask Monica" and got this as a response:

http://blog.nutritiondata.com/ndblo...me-to-nutr.html

I don't want to make this a simple refutation of what she's saying but it's come down to this anyway. So she doesn't disagree with the omega 3/6 argument, how could she. But she holds monounsaturated fats in high regards, high enough to completely counteract the omega 6 inflammation potential. And she still sees saturated fats as inflammatory for no reason that I can see. You see, atherosclerosis is just another form of inflammation. If saturated fat is not associated with atherosclerosis, then it's also not associated with inflammation thereby making it, at worse, inconsequential on the IF scale. That leaves us only with monounsaturated fats in direct opposition to omega 6 PUFA. Considering that we now eat little, if any, saturated fats from animal sources, and that we eat instead a lot of vegetable fats that contain a boatload of monounsaturated fats, it should make us healthier, not sicker. Yet here we are growing sicker, fatter, weaker and probably stupider. Actually, certainly stupider since we do continue to avoid the saturated fats and do continue to eat the vegetables fats in spite of what it obviously does to us. But I digress. The point is that she gives an arbitrarily high value to monounsaturated fats in order to, probably, agree with the current nutritional and health dogma which says that saturated fats are bad for you.

But then, we also eat a boatload of omega 6 from the same oils which contain the monounsaturated fats. That MUFA starts to look quite impotent when pitted against omega 6. It is starting to look pretty bad for her inflammation factor idea thingy.

Martin,

Monica must be relying upon the study discussed here for her thinking that saturated fats are inflammatory. If I was making up an inflammation index, I would have saturated fats as very anti-inflammation.

Thanks for that article, Dodger - it was a great read.