Foods With Conjugated Linoleic Acid

Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) is a recently discovered essential fatty acid. It is a "good" fat, like olive oil. It has several health benefits for humans. It can lower cholesterol, increase insulin production in diabetics, contribute to weight loss by speeding up your metabolism, and has cancer-fighting properties. CLA can't be produced in our bodies, but we can get it from several readily available food sources.

Beef

• CLA naturally occurs in high levels in beef. A study conducted by the Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, Wisconsin, found that grass-fed beef had 500 percent higher levels of CLA in their milk than those cows that were fed just grain. Grass-fed beef is available at some supermarkets, most butchers and a lot of health-food stores. It will be marked as grass-fed somewhere on the label.

Lamb

• Beef contains more CLA, but lamb offers another option. A study published in the Journal of Nutrition conducted by the Department of Human Nutrition at The Ohio State University found that by supplementing lambs' diets with safflower oil, the lambs had higher levels of CLA when processed for meat. Some ranchers took notice and are starting to raise their lambs and sheep on a diet that includes safflower oil. These products should soon be available, and the manufacturer will advertise on the label about the inclusion of safflower oil in the animals' diet.

Milk

• Milk is a rich source of CLA, because it contains vaccenic acid, which is the precursor to CLA. The body converts vaccenic acid to CLA during digestion. The higher the percentage of milk fat, the more vaccenic acid in the milk. That means your body will convert more vaccenic acid to a higher level of CLA. Heating during pasteurization can destroy the vaccenic acid, so it is beneficial to drink unpasteurized milk to preserve the CLA precursor. It is illegal in some states to buy or sell unpasteurized milk, so check the laws of your area.