Healthy fats without nuts or dairy?

April 9, 2018 7:35 PM

Are there any healthy fats for weight gain without nuts or dairy? I am big on nuts, but I do like sunflower seeds and sesame seeds every now and then. I am also lactose intolerant unfortunatley. What are some good fats for proper weight gain?
posted by RearWindow to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Avocado, olives, fatty fish (like salmon), soybeans (like tofu or soy milk).
posted by alligatorpear at 7:38 PM on April 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Avocado.

Olive oil - can use for cooking or to dress salads or drizzle over avocado toast.
posted by bunderful at 7:54 PM on April 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Animal fats are there for you.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:40 PM on April 9, 2018 [8 favorites]

Yeah animal fats are all fine in my opinion. Basically the science has slowly come around on saturated fats not being a driver of cardiac issues or obesity.
posted by MillMan at 9:17 PM on April 9, 2018 [5 favorites]

rapeseed? grapeseed? safflower? soy? corn?

sesame?

ghee?

Also, if you're merely lactose intolerant (and not, e.g., allergic to casein), many hard cheeses and possibly even strained yogurt will be sufficiently low in lactose for you to consume without ill effects.
posted by d. z. wang at 9:42 PM on April 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

Coconuts aren't part of the tree nut family, they are technically a fruit or seed.
posted by OnefortheLast at 12:03 AM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

Coconut milk, eggs, avocado
posted by bearette at 4:08 AM on April 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

Gaining weight via salmon is going to get expensive, but eating a can of herring everyday with lunch is easy.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:44 AM on April 10, 2018

Nth for coconut oil. It is also available in liquid form (there's a 32 oz bottle by Carrington Farms on Amazon and some stores carry the 16 oz bottle by Lou Ana) so you can fatten up your drinks more easily. Works best in hot drinks, of course, but you can add it to cold drinks, and in smoothies it will blend better than a cold chunk of coconut oil. But cold chunks of cononut oil or cacao butter in your smoothies will fatten them up nicely too.
posted by danabanana at 6:16 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ghee or clarified butter are filtered so there are no milk solids and hence no lactose. So those might be an option, depending on how sensitive your lactose intolerance is.

If you notice parts-per-million levels of lactose, I wouldn't recommend this. However, if it means you feel a little nauseous after drinking a big glass of milk, butter and ghee might work for you.
posted by theorique at 6:52 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thirding animal fats. You can select cuts of meat that have a higher proportion of fat, eat skin-on chicken, cook with rendered animals fats (lard, schmaltz, tallow).

Also, there are cheaper fatty fishes than salmon: sardines and anchovies are high in fat, as are mackerel, carp, herring, and eel, among others.
posted by carrioncomfort at 7:56 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've been using eggs.
posted by bdc34 at 8:28 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

In my experience fats do not cause weight gain. Carbs do. Like, I eat a lot of fats when I'm trying to lose a few pounds.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:52 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hemp seed oil has essentially the perfect omega-3/omega-6 ratio for human nutrition.

Unfortunately its smoke point is too low to use it for frying. But raw or in baked goods is fine. Might be ok in one of those "air fryers."

Also lactose intolerant and went through a period of trying to increase my dietary caloric intake for weight gain (naturally thin, generally poor appetite, was doing HIIT with simple stuff like barbells and body resistance at home) - tried:

1) olive oil, shots, raw: that was pretty disgusting, didn't stick with it
2) raw egg in V-8: surprisingly tasty, very umami, palatable
3) kept lots of eggs around all the time: microwave egg cookers rock - a teaspoon of spring roll sweet chili sauce and/or a few flakes of lyophilized basil flakes
4) I can tolerate parmesan cheese: made a lot of carbonera (it's egg yolks and grated parmesan, cooked in the residual heat of the pasta - heavy cream optional and not necessary - save the whites to supplement whole eggs in other applications)
5) duck fat: I hate chicken fat, but duck fat is awesome and tasty for frying stuff (think duck fat tater tots, yam homefries) - the smoke point is kinda low, though; if you render your own the fortuitous side effect are duck cracklins

Ultimately, though, it took me until my early 30s before I could actually put on and keep significant muscle mass. Didn't change anything, it was either just keep at it long enough but I suspect that it was an age related metabolic shift. After that, it was more sticking to exercising and much less diet; I just eat what I feel like now.
posted by porpoise at 2:45 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]