Five ways to add fat to your meal

Just in case you are new here, you might be wondering, "ADD FAT??"  Yes, Add Healthy Fat! This means:

•  saturated fat, the storage medium for pure energy employed by animals and humans alike. It is stable, easily accessible and, if you are trying to lose weight, represents the most filling calories you will encounter.  (In other words, replace 500 calories in sugar with 400 calories in fat - you'll be less hungry, avoid those cravings and lose weight. In other words, skip the 500 calorie Jamba Juice and enjoy10 pieces of bacon (40 calories each) - which of those will leave you feeling full?
• Omega 3 fat, available in grass-fed meat, fish oil, macademia nuts.

For more information on relative health value of fats (yes, some fats are actually bad!) see the definitive guide to fats.  A long time ago, when I was first getting started with paleo, I did a bit of digging on saturated fat and found that there is little evidence all the hatred is based on.

Sharing meals with family members who have not been convinced by the paleo argument, I am forced to find extra nutrition to add to meals,  which have been purposefully deprived of it.  Here are my tricks:

1. Home-made beef stock.  In Russia, the quality of the broth was judged by marbling one could see on the surface.  Real broth, not made from a box, will boast beautiful golden marble-lines on its surface.  Preparing it is super-easy:
   
   Buy soup bones at the grocery store, usually sold at $1-$1.50 a lb, optionally get additional bony meat or organ meat.  Place 3 lbs in a crockpot with two cups of water and your favorite spices. Remove the bones.  Strain.  Keep the meat for a future meal.
   
   You will wind up with the richest broth you have ever seen.  Freeze Add it to a lean soup. Thicken it with tapioca or arrowroot powder and use it as gravy for a lean meal.
   
   
2. Rendered bacon or salt pork. Remember bacon bits, that stuff apparently made out of cardboard and vaguely resembling bacon you get on top of salads? What you should do to create flavorful rich bacon to go on top of almost any meal: salad, mashed potatoes (I do sweet potatoes or mashed cauliflower), lean meat dishes, even steak sauce.
   
   Cut bacon into 1/4 inch strips. Stir-fry in a pan until bacon is somewhat crispy and golden-brown. You don't have to get those as crispy as you might a full piece of bacon as with a greater total surface area, less worry about bubbles that never reach the pan, etc, you get far more crispiness even while preserving much of the body that would be absent in a crumbly-crisp piece of bacon.
   
   
3. Coconut! Yes, it's the greatest source of pick-me-up one can have in a diet. Unlike caffeine, it does not leave me jittery, but makes a real difference in what I can accomplish in my day
   
   Add coconut cream or milk to curries, sauces, gravies. Try substituting dairy milk & cream for coconut. Despite similarly hated fat content, coconut just seems to do more for my body than cream can hope for. I am starting to suspect that perhaps non-dairy paleo crowd isn't far off from the truth.
   
   Sprinkle shredded coconut, raw or roasted, on top of any meal that can benefit from a little crunch in its texture. It's particularly good in place of granola on your yogurt. And on those days when you absolutely must have chocolate, make an instant mounds of joy (with much less sugar) by melting the chocolate with shredded coconut.  Or, to skip the mess and make a coconut/chocolate sandwich.
   
   
4. Avocado/ Guacamole. Personally, I think avocado is boring.  It's ok chopped up in salads, but does little for most meals.  Guacamole, on the other hand, is hard.  But it works as a great side/sauce/dip for a lot of different meals, from steak & roast to veggies or crock pot creations. Here is a simplified version that works quite well:
   
   Mash an avocado with a fork. To peel an avocado, cut it into quarters, around the pit, then pull the corners of the peels down, while popping the meat up.  Add several drops of lemon juice, plenty of cumin, salt & pepper. This will do in a pinch, though throwing in chopped onions & tomatoes will go all the way.
   
   
5. Ghee.  What's that?  Clarified butter. It is healthier, a much better grease that tolerates higher
   temperatures and lasts longer and it happens to have greater saturated fat content than butter (you get it by separating the oil from everything else butter contains).  Rub ghee on your steak prior to placing it in a pan; add it to gravies in place of butter, use it to cook or heat up left-overs.  (Oh, and while we are at it - despite everyone being afraid of the fat content in ghee, some studies have shown it actually reduces cholesterol, according to this wikipedia article on ghee).

Each one of these things makes a difference between a meal that leaves me feeling ok and one after which I feel I can fly.