Lights Out: The “Step On It Rule”

One of the more interesting rule and insightful parts of Lights Out was actually a pretty interesting rule about fats. They called it the “step on it rule”.

Basically, this rule is that you should only eat fat sources that leave an oily imprint if you step on it with just your foot. That pretty much means any animal or fish fat, olives, avocado, maybe some nuts, and coconut. I actually had to test the coconut one myself with a fresh coconut (shell removed) just to make sure.

This is a pretty slick way of telling people to avoid eating any form of fake seed oils. Corn, Soy, Canola, etc in their unprocessed form do not leave a grease stain. Black olives and bacon sure as hell do.

The other thing this does is it limits nut consumption considerably. I am of the belief that most people eat way to many nuts, especially Paleo folks who try to stick to lean meats exclusively. This leaves you needing a fat source and you wind up gorging on tons of Omega-6′s and lectins that you were trying so hard to otherwise avoid.

I find myself rotating cravings for plant sources of fat. It’s a pretty solid cycle between avocado, coconut, and olives. Currently, olives are in favor. In a few weeks I’ll probably get sick of them and move on to something else. The constant throughout all of this is animal fats.

This sort of makes sense from a seasonality perspective. Animals would have been available all year, although probably not in the quantity of bacon and cow I consume. Plants, however, would probably not be accessible to my Irish and Italian ancestors year round. I think the ability to preserve some plants came about pretty early (such as fermented foods or pickled or brined foods). Maybe that’s why I’m on a olive kick in December.

Either way, I really cannot think of other plant based fat sources that do not meet this criteria. The process of rendering an oil from something like corn or soy involves a Manhattan Project level of science. It also involves extremely toxic chemicals. While the hexane and other chemicals do not (probably) make it into your Crisco in a large enough dose to cause the FDA concern, does something that requires a science experiment to make edible really make sense as food?

If you can think of other plants that fit this bill post into comments.

Here’s a video of how canola (rapeseed) oil is made:
Ignore the propaganda about how “healthy” it is and really focus on words like chemical, high pressure pressing, bleaching, process, etc

Now compare it to Olive Oil

*Note: even I find the music in the second video to be a ridiculous juxtaposition with the first. It’s almost like youtube is on my side.