Many people think that including fat in our diet is not good for the body. Most of us try to reduce our cholesterol levels, losing weight and eating healthier in order to achieve a whole lifestyle change and live longer. However, clinical trial illustrated that the total amount of fat we eat in our diet isn’t really associated with disease. People that used to eat a low-fat diet for more than eight years were diagnosed with heart disease, colon cancer or breast cancer. In effect, what really matters is the type of fat we eat.
Good fats are very important nutrient for our body because they function as a valuable source of fuel supplying the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. This concentrated source of energy arranges our body temperature and regulates our hormones covering a significant part of our body’s energy needs. In addition, stored fat contains the vital fatty acids omega 3 and 6 that are needed by the body to support natural growth, sustain healthy skin, nerve transmission, immune system, reproduction, and brain and visual development and maintain cell membrane integrity.
The key is to eat only good fats in our diet. But to do that we have to know the difference between good and bad fats.
Bad fats are categorized into:
- Saturated fats: they raise the bad cholesterol (LDL) and the total cholesterol levels in the blood. Saturated fats are mostly found in meat, eggs, seafood and dairy products, but they can also be found in coconut oil and palm oil.
- Trans fats: they appeared when liquid oils begun to sustain hydrogenation so that they can better endure the food production process and have a longer shelf life. Trans fats are mostly found in packaged foods.
Good fats are categorized into:
- Monosaturated fats (MUFAs): they lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) and the total cholesterol, while increasing the good cholesterol (HDL) levels in the blood. MUFAs are mostly found in nuts, peanut butter, avocados, sesame seeds, sesame oil, peanut oil, olive oil, canola and olives.
- Polyunsaturated fats: they also lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) and the total cholesterol levels in the blood. Polyunsaturated fats are mostly found in mayonnaise, whip salad dressing, walnuts, fish oil, corn oil, sunflower, pumpkin seeds and soybean. Omega 3 belongs to this group of fats and can be found in salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, nuts and flaxseed.
The minimum quantity of fat we should consume per day should be the product of our body weight multiplied by 0.5 grams per pound or 1.0 for kgs. Some of the tastiest foods contain fat because fat holds on to flavor.
Some good tips for adding good fats into our daily diet involve:
- Using olive oil or canola oil for pan-frying: It is vital to examine the fats we use for cooking. For instance, butter and margarine are high in saturated and trans fats and therefore, they should be avoided. Replacing butter with canola or olive oil when cooking improves the quality of fat intake.
- Using flaxseed oil for salads and dressings: Flaxseed oil is one of the best and highly recommended oils for our well being and body nutrition as it contains high quantities of Omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids, vitamin B, lecithin, potassium, fiber, magnesium, protein and zinc.
- Minimizing the use of packaged foods: Most packaged foods contain sweeteners, coloring, artificial flavoring and preservatives. All these bad fats can ruin our health if consumed regularly.
- Using low-fat dairy products such as 1% or skim milk: Low-fat dairy products are known to reduce hypertension risk, PMS symptoms, migraine symptoms and to prevent child obesity and colon cancer.
- Eating salmon or mackerel twice a week: As human body cannot produce Omega 3 fatty acids, it is vital to eat fish. The health benefits of omega-3s cover a wide range improving from heart health to mental health problems.
- Put avocado slices in sandwiches: Due to its shape and skin texture, avocado is highly nutritious and the perfect contour to salads, soups, salsas and more. Not only it is loaded with carotenoid that boosts nutrition, but it also adds a fine creamy flavor.
- Eating dried fruits, soy buts, walnuts and sunflowers seeds once a week.
- Including nuts in our daily diet: Containing a variety of beneficial nutrients, including vitamin E and zinc, and being a good source of fiber, nuts are healthy. Also, they are highly versatile and they can be used at any meal.
- Eating olives as a snack: Olives are one of the best sources of MUFAs and a great low calorie snack. Containing iron, fiber, copper and vitamin E, olives can be a great snack with less than 100 calories in a serving of 20.
Adding health fats to our diet help us meeting our calorie needs without having to eat huge volumes of food. Good fats such as olive oil make vegetables more appealing, but, most importantly, meals with good fat have more staying power. Fat may take up to four hours to digest which means that when we eat fat we feel fuller for longer time than when we eat carbohydrate.
In addition, healthy fats offer more flavors to our diet and expose our body to more nutrients thus helping us performing our best. In other words, when we eat a little healthy fat we get more benefit than if we eat food with no fat at all. Healthy fat protects our vital organs and supplies the building blocks for our cells.
I work as a financial and investment advisor but my passion is writing, music and photography. Writing mostly about finance, business and music, being an amateur photographer and a professional dj, I am inspired from life.
Being a strong advocate of simplicity in life, I love my family, my partner and all the people that have stood by me with or without knowing. And I hope that someday, human nature will cease to be greedy and demanding realizing that the more we have the more we want and the more we satisfy our needs the more needs we create. And this is so needless after all.
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