RE: FAT Glorious FAT - We sing your praises!
I totally understand the ethical reasons people want to be vegetarian, so nothing I'm about to say is a judgement on anybody. I kept this post fairly simple to make it more accessible, but I could have written a lot more about why the animal fats are important, why vegetable oils can be dangerous, why to avoid margarine, or about what @geke alluded to. And I know I promised to write about infertility and it's still on my list!
But this is part of it. The animal fats, plus seafood, are our best sources of vitamin A and vitamin D, which are vital for good fertility. There is no vitamin A in plant foods, only the carotenes, which need to be converted to the active form of Vitamin A, and not everybody can do that. We can get vitamin D from the sun, under certain optimal circumstances, but our main dietary source is the animal fats. So while there are many other factors, low vitamin A or D status is one big contributor to infertility. The societies that Weston Price visited all considered raw dairy, organ foods and seafood the sacred foods, and fed them to the young married couples to ensure fertility.
When you have an ethical position of not eating most of those animal foods, AND you are unable to tolerate dairy, this makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to get enough of these nutrients without supplementation.
The fats and oils you are using are great, and it's good that you haven't gone down the low fat road. But if you were able to use ghee, even if you have to avoid all other dairy, you might find that helpful.
(shudders) The thought of eating organ meats and seafood fills me with horror. I never liked eating meat as a kid, even before I became a vegetarian. It was just never my thing. Steak and seafood always turned my stomach. My naturopathic doctor who I saw for most of my early 20's always said if you craved something, your body needed it, and if you didn't like something, it was because there was something in it your body doesn't need, so you shouldn't eat it. I was never a meat fan. So, I gae it up. Plus, as I got older, my love of animals made me not want to eat them. :)
I'd love to try ghee. I see it at the health food store all the time, but have never bought any. I go for the organic butter. I guess I'm just not sure how to cook with it. Like, how high of a temperature can you go with it without browning it?
I DO supplement with Vit. D3 daily. :)
I agree with him up to a point. We all have different metabolic needs, and some are better suited to a plant based diet than others. But on the other hand, being deficient in zinc creates a dislike of red meat, which is ironically a good source of zinc. So you can never be entirely sure.
Since you have problems with dairy, ghee would be a great option for you, as it has the milk solids removed. Just use it anywhere you'd use butter. You are less likely to react to it, and it's less prone to burning without the milk solids. I don't usually cook at really high temperatures, so I'm not sure how high you can take it. (For high heat, I'd use the coconut). It's really yummy with brown rice and beans too.