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Research has shown that you not only need to watch the "amount"
of fat that you eat in your diet, but also the "types"
of fat you eat. This article will help you minimize the negative
effects that fat has on your health...
1. Basic Terms:
- "Bad" cholesterol clogs your arteries and causes
heart disease.
- "Good" cholesterol helps collect up the bad cholesterol
and get it out of your system.
- Saturated fat is "bad fat" that increases the bad
cholesterol in your body.
- Polyunsaturated fat is "good fat" that lowers both
good and bad cholesterol.
- Monounsaturated fat is "really good fat" that helps
lower the bad cholesterol, but leaves the good cholesterol alone.
- Fatty acids are the building blocks of fat.
- Trans fatty acids are made in the production of partially
hydrogenated vegetable oils used to make margarine and many
snack foods and processed foods.
- Whole foods are unprocessed food that occur in nature...
nuts, meat, milk, poultry, eggs, fish, seeds, grains, rice,
fruits, vegetables.
2. Why Fat is Bad: Fat is calorie-dense, it contains more than
twice the number of calories as carbohydrates. A high fat diet
has been linked to several chronic diseases such as cancer and
increased risk of coronary heart disease. Saturated fats can increase
bad cholesterol.
3. Why Fat is Good: It gives taste and texture to foods. Unsaturated
fats can decrease the bad cholesterol in your body.
4. How Fat in Your Diet Affects You: Fat in your food can affect
you differently depending on your particular health issues. If
you are at risk for heart disease, saturated fat is something
you want to avoid. According to the American Heart Association,
a heart healthy diet can contain up to 30% of calories from fat,
as long as most of the fat is unsaturated. If you are diabetic,
you want to lower the trans fatty acids and raise the polyunsaturated
fatty acids. Consider reducing the amount of processed foods and
increasing the amount of whole foods you consume. If you are on
a diet to lose weight, it's a good idea to lower total fat in
your diet. Losing weight comes down to the calories in versus
calories out and fat has more than twice the amount of calories
as other foods.
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5. Types of Fat You Should Choose:
- Polyunsaturated fats are found in flax, corn, safflower,
soybean, sesame, and sunflower oils. (These nonhydrogenated
fats are liquid at room temperature.)
- Polyunsaturated fats found in fish.
- Monounsaturated fats found in olive oil and canola oil.
6. Types of Fat You Should Try to Avoid:
- Any type of hydrogenated fat. This is man-made fat and you
will find it in snack foods, margarine, bakery products and
other processed foods.
- Man made fat substitutes like Olestra (you might find fat
substitutes in fat free snack foods). Even if scientific research
could solidly prove that fat substitutes weren't hazardous to
your health, these products just perpetrate bad eating habits.
- Animal fats including whole milk, butter, poultry skin, and
fatty cuts of meat.
Fat doesn't have to be a bad thing if you choose your fat wisely!
If you can choose whole foods over process foods, you will be
eating a much healthier diet. Also, for any type of special diet,
consider using a NutriCounter to help you keep track of your total
fat and saturated fat intake
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