"Does your doctor know you are following advice from a book? Does he/she approve?"

Yes, I've told my doctors about Dr. Ornish, and the higher they are paid, the less they care. In other words, my surgeons have never heard of him. At least they wouldn't admit to it. I get my healthcare through the VA system. The problem with Ornish is, people get better without surgery, and that's a LOT of money being diverted from surgical teams and hospitals. He's not embraced generally by the medical community for this reason, I think. The VA in particular is about 20 years behind the times in terms of adjusting to what research shows, I thought. It's a bureacracy. Change takes time.

"I am not a doctor but I do know that if I do not have adequate fats and calories and protein, I will need one very soon."

What is your source for knowing that you need to eat fats, besides the ones found naturally in food? I would like to go to it myself.

"Look - no one is criticizing your choice."

Really. From this end, it feels like I'm being pounded. I thought about it, and decided it's not about the oil, it's about my stupid attempt at humour with my signature: "stop the world and half you people get off". It would probably be a funnier play on the original to say, "stop the world, and all you people get off".

"It's your choice to make. Call it concerned questioning, because I don't understand the reasoning behind your theories."

Now it's "my theories". The VA's official recommendation for oil is 20% of calories from fat/oil. Ornish's program found that limiting it to 10% resulted in cardiac arteries opening. Since I have CAD (Coronary Artery Disease), I decided to do the 10% thing. The VA doctors do not hold Dr. Ornish in high regard, and some have not even heard of him. Their "antennae" are not tuned to research that saves money, or that is not thoroughly "gold standard". The gold standard is bypass surgery and drugs. Diet is a minor component, almost an afterthought, of their care of me. Anyway, this is not supposed to be a medical forum, so let me make a few remarks to answer the genuine concern that is I hope is driving this whole conversation.

1. In a previous post I pasted a link to an interview of Ornish, but I failed to mention that in the interview he said he did not advocate not using oil. He said he did recommend some kind of fish oil for Omega-3's. He talks about different diets for different people, for example a prevention diet, or a reversal diet. Heart patients have other needs, to limit the consumption of cholesterol, for example, for exercise, for a peaceful home, good relations, etc.
2. I have not specifically told my doctors that I am not consuming olive oil.
3. To satisfy the concerns expressed here, I will buy a bottle of evoo tomorrow and start using to sautee my onions and garlic and herbs.
4. On my next visit to the doctor (it's coming up soon), I will ask him about the oil thing.
5. Between now and that visit, I will look into the oil thing. If you have knowledgeable sources of information concerning the need for oil in the diet, I'd like to hear it so I can read it, too.
6. I think reading books is a good way to get information. Did you know that doctors had to read a whole bunch of books in order to become doctors? I myself have taken the pre-med curriculum in college, and everything was in books. Big books. Expensive books. But books they were, and it's okay to read books and learn from them, in my opinion.

"I've often seen the harm it can do, trying to use some book written by some guy - anyone can write a book. Anyone can claim people with blood type O needs to eat more grains than proteins, or only eat grapefruit to lose a lot of weight fast - oh, there are some fascinating reads on the used bookshelves."

I know. I must come across as pretty dumb. I'm not sure how to change that.

"If the book you're living by meets your doctor's approval and it makes you healthier, more power to you."

I've always considered that I make my own decisions, even in health care. I don't blindly submit to anything a doctor recommends. I think about what he/she is saying, I read the research, and I make up my own mind. I do thoroughly discuss things with my doctors, and grille them until I am satisfied that I have the information I need to make an informed choice. That includes questioning their suggestions. To make you happy, I will ask his suggestion about oil, and I will re-read what Ornish is saying. I trust him because he bases his suggestions on what the research is saying, not what the capitalist medical industry is selling. Oh good, now we're going into politics.

"I'm all for being healthy. It just doesn't sound right to me to deprive a human body of the things we know it needs"

Is this still about oil? "The things it needs"??? Surely folks are not against being a vegetarian? Against daily exercise? Against stress management? Against social support? That's all that Ornish is saying in "that book", and I cannot imagine any doctor being against any one of those things. Do you want me to ask my doc next time, "Hey, doc, should I go for high stress or low stress? I read a book that quoted scientic research as saying that high stress is strongly linked to heart disease. Am I that much of an idiot that I have to ask him? Come on, give me some credit here. He probably hasn't even read about the study.

"Not to mention all the other more experienced hikers on whose experience I draw to inform my own endeavors - no one is focused on decreasing oils in the diet, they are instead focused on increasing caloric intake in the most compact fashion."

Are they heart patients? Is this a backpackers forum for heart patients? Are these more experienced hikers you mention heart patients or heart doctors? Everyone ought to limit their fat/oil intake to be healthy. Can anyone argue with that? Look at the incidence of obesity in American children. Vegetarians have less heart disease than anyone, vegans even less. These are facts. That's just the way it works. If ya smoke, you're more inclined to heart disease. It's a fact. Stressed out? Zap! (maybe)

So I'll use a little oil starting tommorrow, I'll do more reading because I believe in reading, and I'll get the facts. And I'll report them here. How's that sound? Can everyone relax now?

I would like to ask, are you sure that you yourself have all the facts about heart disease and oil consumption? Are you a cardiologist? Have ya read some books about it? I'm not sure I have all the facts, which is why I will do more research (reading books) and have discussion with my doctor. HOWEVER, I will be the one doing it in the end. I will decide on a course of action based on ALL the evidence, and it will be me who implements the decision. Truthfully, I don't think experienced hikers know about the biochemistry of metabolism. I think they know how to thrive in the woods. When I have questions about my diet in order to reverse heart disease, I won't be asking any of them, no matter how long they have hiked. Hiking is not medicine. I won't buy a hiking book to find out, either. I'll probably buy a book that is based on research that was published in the AMA Journal of Medicine, though. Research that is specific to the reversal and maintenance of heart disease through healthy living is exactly the book I want to read, because it is based on facts and I want to get better through healthy living . Why? Because I am responsible for myself. Scientific research tells us what the facts are. The people who do the research write books to tell other people what facts they discovered, through reproducible and verifiable means. It's called The Scientific Method. Other scientists can set up the experiment/study and check the facts themselves.

I don't do fad diets. I'm just a guy who eats whole, unprocessed foods as much as possible. Yesterday I had a huge salad for lunch: lettuce, mung bean sprouts, lentil sprouts, and ranch dressing. The dressing, a double serving, had 32 grams of fat in it, 5 grams of it was saturated (14%). A little high, but I cheat sometimes. So I got oil, but it wasn't out of an oil bottle. There is oil in other foods I eat. I still assert I am eating oil even though I don't buy it, but I will do what I said above, to make sure, and then report back. If I have to, I'll drink it right out of the bottle. But I would have to have verifiable facts that I need to do that first.

Are we good now?
Will a GoLite Lite-Speed large size hold a BV500?
If an MSR Pocket Rocket cannister (7.75oz) will bring 15 liters of water to a boil, how many liters will it bring to a boil and then simmer for 45 minutes?
Can we change the subject, in other words... i'm having too much fun.