I started paying attention to ingredients the same way I started paying attention to training. Not because I wanted to become unbearable, but because once you notice the pattern, it gets hard to ignore.
One shift showed up fast, and it was cooking fat.
Part of it came from fitness. When you are trying to eat cleaner, recover better, and stop letting marketing departments design your appetite, the oil question shows up fast. It is in everything. Dressings, sauces, restaurant food, “healthy” snacks pretending to help. You start reading labels and realize half the shelf is basically canola with a wellness font.
I have a simple rule now. If I cannot spell it, pronounce it, or explain why it is there, it probably does not belong in my body. Not a peer-reviewed standard. More of a survival filter. But it works.
Our grandparents were not eating perfectly, but their food did not come with a chemistry set attached. Fried food existed before industrial oils took over every shelf, fryer, dressing, and snack aisle.
That shift changed how I cook. More olive oil. Butter when I actually want butter. Beef tallow when I want high heat and food that tastes like food.
And yes, this probably means I have become the kind of person who has opinions about cooking fat. Fine. At least this version of me feels better, eats better, and does not need a protein bar labeled “birthday cake” to survive the afternoon.
