I said yesterday that, in order to ditch the ghee for the rest of this 60-day Whole30 program, I’d be picking up some coconut oil, and maybe some pastured tallow or lard. I spotted something else at the store that I’ve always wanted to try, and used it to make tonight’s dinner: red palm oil.

Tropical oils derived from coconut and palm fruit have gotten a bad rep because they contain so much saturated fat. I remember once in the early ’90s seeing some product with a label proclaiming, “Contains no tropical oils!” At the time, not knowing much about nutrition other than the fact that Cheez-Its and Cinnabons were super-tasty, I had no idea why anybody might want to avoid tropical oils. They sounded delicious, I thought, and considered whether I’d be more likely to buy whatever it was if it had said, “Now contains three kinds of tropical oils!”

In any event, the tide of science and a large chunk of popular opinion has turned. We now know that saturated fat is great for you, and the purported evidence to the contrary was based on cherry-picked data from aggregate observations that did not control for other important dietary and lifestyle factors. There is no reliable evidence that saturated fat correlates with, contributes to, or causes the conditions like heart disease for which it’s so often blamed. Quite the opposite, and I’m all about the tropical oils today.

So, no more ghee (until March 17). Bring on the non-dairy forms of delicious, nutritious, saturated fat.

Here are my food photos for day 4:

Saturday, Jan. 18

I woke up at 9:55 a.m. (after heading to bed at 2:15 a.m.). This is the longest night of sleep I’ve had since this started on Wednesday, although it happened because I utterly failed to get up for more than an hour after my 8:45 alarm. I’ll shoot again for 8:45 on Sunday morning.

Breakfast: 10:45 a.m. | 8 oz. bison, 1 carrot, 1/2 rutabaga, 1/2 sweet onion, 4 cloves garlic, 2 Tbsp. ghee, herbs & spices

Leftovers from last night’s dinner.

Lunch: 3:00 p.m. | 4 oz. prosciutto, 2 oz. kale chips

Most prosciutto has dextrose and often other additives included, but this doesn’t! And these particular kale chips are the only commercial brand I’ve seen so far that are Whole30-compliant, but even that’s only true up until the point at which we eliminate all forms of fruit altogether. Before too long, the lemon juice will rule these out.

Dinner: 9:40 p.m. | 1/2 pork loin, 2 carrots, 1/2 rutabaga, 1/2 yellow onion, 4 cloves garlic, 2 Tbsp. red palm oil, herbs & spices

I ate the contents of the plate below, saving a roughly equal portion for breakfast.