The Good and Bad of FATS

Posted by AMelane in

0 comments

Fats, Fats, and More FATS…

Last week I had a client that wanted me to help her cut fats out of her diet…she stated that if she stopped eating fatty foods, she would lose weight faster. After explaining to her about her need for some fats and reduction, I decided to write to help others understand the role of fats.

There are some misconceptions about fats, that they are all bad for us. But we need fats to survive. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble, meaning they can only be digested, absorbed, and transported in conjunction with fats. Fats play a vital role in maintaining healthy skin and hair (ladies don’t we all want this), insulating body organs against shock, maintaining body temperature, and promoting healthy cell function. Fats also serve as energy stores for the body; they are broken down in the body to be used in the conversion to glucose. Fat also serves as a useful buffer towards a host of diseases, storing the harmful materials until the body has time to excrete it.

It is nearly impossible to remove fat completely from the diet; it would be unhealthy to do so. Some fatty acids are essential nutrients, meaning that they can't be produced in the body from other compounds and need to be consumed in small amounts. All other fats required by the body are non-essential and can be produced in the body from other compounds.
And we get these useful fats from the foods that we eat, but not all fats are created equal. Some can be very harmful in excess and cause major health concerns. The major kinds of fats in the foods we eat are saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, cholesterols and trans fatty acids.

Saturated fatty acids have all the hydrogen the carbon atoms can hold. Saturated fats are usually solid at room temperature, and they're more stable, that is, they don't combine readily with oxygen. The main sources of saturated fat in the typical American diet are foods from animals and some plants. Here are some examples of saturated fats from animal sources: whole milk, cream, ice cream, whole-milk cheeses, butter, lard and meats. Saturated fats are also in some plant oils, like palm, palm kernel and coconut oils, cocoa butter.

Cholesterol is required to build and maintain membranes, yet in excess it can have harmful side effects. Your body needs some cholesterol to work properly. But if you have too much in your blood, it can stick to the walls of your arteries. This is called plaque. Plaque can narrow your arteries or even block them. Cholesterol comes mostly from animal sources like: meats, egg yolks, dairy products, organ meats (heart, etc.), fish and poultry

Trans fats are unsaturated, but they can raise total and LDL ("bad") cholesterol and lower HDL ("good") cholesterol. Trans fats result from adding hydrogen to vegetable oils used in commercial baked goods and for cooking in most restaurants and fast-food chains.
Cookies, crackers and other commercial baked goods made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils may be high in trans fat. French fries, donuts and other commercial fried foods are major sources of trans fat in the diet.
Just note that all processed foods have some amount of trans fats. Even though claims are made by certain products or restaurants they don’t use trans fats, they are still involved in all frying processes.

Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids are two types of unsaturated fatty acids. They're often found in liquid oils of vegetable origin. The differences in the two are that monounsaturated fats will become solids upon refrigeration.

Polyunsaturated fats are the good fats. They tend to help your body get rid of newly formed cholesterol. Thus, they keep the blood cholesterol level down and reduce cholesterol deposits in artery walls. Recent research has shown that monounsaturated fats may also help reduce blood cholesterol as long as the diet is very low in saturated fat. Here are some examples of polyunsaturated fats in certain oils: safflower, sesame, soy, corn and sunflower-seed oils, nuts and seeds. Monounsaturated fats are also in certain plant oils, the major sources of these fats are: olive, canola and peanut oils, avocados

Both types of unsaturated fats may help lower your blood cholesterol level when used in place of saturated fats in your diet. But you should be moderate in eating all types of fat, because fats contain more than twice the calories of either protein or carbohydrate

Polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oils — and margarines and spreads made from them — should be used in limited amounts in place of fats with a high saturated fat content, such as butter, lard or hydrogenated shortenings.

So now that you know they different types of fat, here are the recommendations for them:
Limit foods high in saturated fat, trans fat and/or cholesterol, such as whole-milk dairy products, fatty meats, tropical oils, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and egg yolks. Instead choose foods low in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol.

Here are some helpful tips:
Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables.
Eat a variety of grain products, including whole grains.
Eat fish at least twice a week, particularly fatty fish.
Include fat-free and low-fat milk products, legumes (beans), skinless poultry and lean meats.
Choose fats and oils such as liquid and tub margarines, canola, corn, safflower, soy bean and olive oils.
Saturated fat intake should not exceed 7 percent of total calories each day. Trans fat intake should not exceed 1 percent of total calories each day.
Total fat intake (saturated, trans, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated) should be adjusted to fit total caloric needs. Overweight people should consume no more than 30 percent of total calories from fat.
Happy Monday!!