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With an epidemic of obesity threatening a growing number of countries throughout the world, you’ve probably already heard about all of the negative aspects of dietary fat. It’s true, fat is not only more calorie-dense than other dietary components like carbohydrates and protein, but it also tends to find a hiding place in some of our more decadent foods. Therefore, we may find ourselves eating too much of it without intentionally setting out to!
But this vilifying of fats should only be taken so far. We need fat in our diet. It gives us energy, carries essential vitamins, and even keeps our skin soft and healthy. The problem with fat today isn’t only how much we eat, it’s what type we eat. For, just as we’ve learned that there is good and bad cholesterol, there are also unhealthy and healthy fats.
First, a caveat: too much fat will always make you gain weight. As mentioned above, fat is calorie-dense. So eating a lot of high-fat foods, even if they contain only healthy fats, will cause you to gain weight more quickly than eating more of other foods. It’s recommended that you get about 20-35% of your calories from fat. Going over that mark may lead to higher numbers on the scale. But as long as you stay within that range, eating healthy fats can actually be beneficial to your health.
Unhealthy Fats
Let’s talk about the fats you may already know are not in your best interest: saturated fats and trans fats. These fats are major contributors to obesity, heart disease, clogged arteries, high cholesterol, and some forms of cancer. Saturated and trans fats are often solids at room temperature, as opposed to healthy fats, which are liquids. Saturated fats are found in a variety of animal products, like meat, whole milk, ice cream, cheese, poultry skin, and lard.
Some believe that trans fats are even worse culprits for negatively affecting human health than saturated fats. Trans fats come in two varieties: natural and artificial. The synthesized trans fats are those that experts believe are most detrimental to health. They are found in fried foods, cookies, crackers, icing, packaged snacks, and microwave popcorn. Even relatively small amounts of trans fats can increase a person’s risk for heart disease.
Healthy Fats
Okay, so you’ve heard all this talk about unhealthy fats before, what about the fats you can eat? Unsaturated fats, which include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, fall into the category of healthy fats. These fats accomplish the dietary goals that we need fats to accomplish (energy, vitamins, etc.), but without the negative health effects caused by saturated fats and trans fats. Thus, they are effective replacements for saturated and trans fats.
But unsaturated fats do more than just stand in for saturated and trans fats. Eating unsaturated fats can actually have a beneficial effect on health. Polyunsaturated fats can lower cholesterol and levels of triglycerides in the blood, both part of the heart-damaging effects of bad fats. Monounsaturated fats are thought to reduce the risk of heart disease as well. The effects of healthy fats are of course compounded when they are used to replace unhealthy fats, as they remove the negative effects along with adding some positives. Healthy fats improve digestion and heart health, and can actually keep you from gaining weight when used to replace unhealthy fats.
So where can you find healthy fats? Monounsaturated fats are prominent in the Mediterranean Diet, the diet so well-known for its association with reduced heart disease in countries like Italy and Greece. They are found in:
- olive oil
- olives
- nuts
- sunflower oil
- canola oil
- peanut butter
- avocados
- sesame oil.
The best sources of polyunsaturated fats are:
- fish
- sunflower, sesame, and pumpkin seeds
- soy milk
- corn oil
- soybean oil are also great sources.
Omega-3 fatty acids are one well-known type of polyunsaturated fats found in:
- fish
- flaxseed
- flax oil
- nut oils
- walnuts
Omega-3’s have been shown to have powerful heart health benefits when eaten in their natural form.
Despite what the dieting books may lead you to believe, fats are not all bad. There are some healthy fats that, when eaten in the right proportions can actually improve your health. Replace the unhealthy fats with healthy fats and not your only waistline, but also your heart, will thank you.
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this article is absolutely bogus…..while trans fats are definitely bad for you, the myths about saturated fats being bad have long been dispelled….those myths were created by Ancel Keyes flawed study and BigAgra interests…..and canola, soy and corn are 90+% GMO these days…..also, the current American diet is about 50:1 omega 6 to omega 3 when an ideal ratio is more like 2:1….therefore, promoting any omega 6 fats is irresponsible….
I agree with latebloomer lumping saturated fats with trans fats is irresponsible. Veg. fats are trans fats . The extraction methods destroy their delicate molecular structures. Saturated fats prevent cancer, provide immune system support and cell integrity. The heart prefers saturated fats for energy and is surrounded by it.You are also misleading people withe the calorie in/out theory. Weight loss/gain is HORMONAL NOT CALORIC. Fat is more sating and will lead to LESS eating. Fat will actually lead to weight loss (think coconut oil).
I agree with the first 2 posts. They have it all wrong. I will not be sharing this article with any of my friends.
agreed! i can’t believe corn, canola and soybean oil are listed as healthy fats. i stay FAR away from those and try to get fat from coconut, olive, avocado, fish, nuts, seeds, and full fat grass fed dairy. saturated fat is GOOD!!!!!!!!!
I usually look forward to this sites’ health info. So this one surprised me. From my own personal experience this article is totally wrong when it says to avoid saturated fats. I was mercury toxic and guided by Dr Hal Huggins who was working with my blood work. He told me to eat lots of healthy saturated fats from organic raw butter and cream and organic grass fed animal meat esp liver n order to heal. Since I was down to 84lbs lbs trying to heal my 7 autoimmune diseases by eating a raw vegan diet, which wasn’t working…I did this and today I am drug fee and disease free. I eat raw butter, raw cream, beef, liver and heart from local grass fed cows, lard, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, avocados, raw cheese, and olive oil everyday along with lots of green leafy and root veggies, some fruits and berries, beans, some ancient WHOLE grains (no wheat, spelt, bulghar, kamut or soy) and lots of herbs and spices! I also do the best Omega 3 I can find. I’m never hungry because I do enough good fats that are nutrient dense and my weight has naturally settled at a perfect number for me. My triglycerides are so low the hospital equipment cannot even register them. My HDL is up over 100. And the extensive testing I did in a Biogenetics lab said my LDL molecules were the largest they had ever seen. This is a good thing and the doc who read my tests said “if everyone had such good tests scores there would not be the need for cardiologists”.
So don’t believe this last posting. Why is everyone following this low fat advice and all getting sicker and fatter? Try it yourself. Drop the low fat foods and toxic omega 6 vegetable oils, most of which are GMO as the above commenter noted. Eat healthy saturated fats. But make sure you do ‘healthy’… non pasteurized and preferably raw dairy and organic grass fed free range meats. Eat the food our ancestors ate, drop the processed foods like breads and pastas and you will naturally get what the body needs and it will heal itself. I work as a health coach now and it isn’t just me this works for. If you want more prof read Dr Lundells’ ‘The Cure For Heart Disease’. He’s a famous Harvard trained heart surgeon who recommends the same things….dropping the high Omega 6 vegetable fats and eating butter, coconut oil and even lard! Science has discredited much of the old diet beliefs, but it takes forever for it to filter down to the public. This article was based on old science and outdated information in my opinion. Granted it’s what’s out there wherever you look. But that doesn’t make it true.
I’m afraid your readers are more informed than you are.
It seems to me the Be Well Buzz is more of a forum than a gospel-truth website. I’ve listened to the articulate and well informed Shawn Stevenson, for example, and most, of the articles also seem to be well informed, but this Good Fat article is one of the few pieces I’ve read here that doesn’t get it right.. Corn, canola, and soybean oil…seriously!?