High Cholesterol Foods - Healthy, not Harmful

Your body produces three to four times more cholesterol than you eat. The production of cholesterol increases when you eat little cholesterol and decreases when you eat much. In other words, the more high cholesterol foods you eat, the less cholesterol your body produces. It is true that the body – more specifically the liver – can produce cholesterol for the body's needs. But taking cholesterol from high cholesterol foods can be helpful. When you do not take enough high cholesterol foods – for example, if you take mainly vegetable oils rather than animal fat containing cholesterol – the cholesterol in your blood will the transferred to your cells.

In traditional societies, high cholesterol foods were regarded as healthy foods. Our ancestors did not know about cholesterol but they knew that eggs, organ meat (including the brain), seafood, shellfish… were all highly nourishing for the body. Cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to the cells of all mammals. Cholesterol in its proper place is good, but it also has a dark side. Thus, the highest concentration of cholesterol in the body is found in the brain and other parts of the nervous system. And because cholesterol is needed for the brain, babies and children need high cholesterol foods for brain development. One of the richest high cholesterol foods is, in fact, human breast milk. And one of the worst foods to give to babies is soy infant formula, because it contains zero cholesterol.

People with very low cholesterol (below 150 mg/dl) are more prone to depression and nervous system disorders. Many scientific studies have found an association between cholesterol and heart disease. But this does not meant that high cholesterol foods cause heart disease – because there are people who eat plenty of high cholesterol foods and do not develop heart disease. And there are also people who develop heart disease even though they avoid high cholesterol foods. It is also important to understand that eating high cholesterol foods will not automatically lead to high cholesterol levels in the blood.

Among the many research findings published in scientific jou
als, Uffe Ravnskov discovered that: lowering cholesterol did not result in lower death rates from heart disease, but in HIGHER death rates from all causes. More significantly, Uffe Ravnskov has published over 80 scientific papers and letters in peer-reviewed jou
als criticizing what is commonly called the Lipid Hypothesis of heart disease – the belief that dietary saturated fats and cholesterol clog arteries and cause atherosclerosis and heart disease. Click here to read more about Uffe Ravnskov and the benefits of high cholesterol foods. Foods that are high in saturated fats and trans fat (such as coconut oil) can also raise your level of LDL (bad) cholesterol, so, in a way, they have a similar effect on your body as eating high cholesterol foods. But it does not stop there, because there are a number of other foods that may not be considered "high cholesterol foods" but that still raise your LDL cholesterol ("bad" cholesterol) more than high cholesterol foods do. If a food does not come from an animal (such as a fruit or vegetable), then it does not have cholesterol.

To appreciate why high cholesterol foods are not harmful, we need to understand what cholesterol is, and what role it plays in human health. Typically, high cholesterol foods are also high in saturated fats, which is part of what makes them taste good. High cholesterol foods should not be entirely avoided, as many of them are an essential part of a healthy diet, as noted above, but you should learn to reduce their intake in order to maintain or lower your LDL cholesterol levels. High cholesterol foods are animal products such as eggs, fatty meats, and any poultry with the skin on would be high in cholesterol. nnnn