Fat- the most misunderstood nutrient of this century. The biggest myth: “ Eat fat and you’ll get fat”
The nutrient fat has almost become synonymous with heart disease. We have been brainwashed for years that fat is not good for our heart. In 1970 heart doctors came out with the recommendation of low-fat diet due to the risk of heart disease.
Heart disease, hypertension, diabetes have significantly gone up in these 40 plus years….. Along with that mother of all these demons—Obesity.
Low-fat products are crowding grocery shelves and still more and more people are becoming obese. What is scary is the alarming rate of type II diabetes onset in kids. Do we wonder why?? The reason is we have replaced fat with refined sugar in our diet. We have deprived our body of good nutrition and substituted it with the bad one.
Healthy fat is an essential nutrient in our diet. Now note the key word here is ‘Healthy’.
More than the absolute amount of fat the kind of fat that we consume determines our health outcome.
To understand health benefits of fat we need to first understand how does our body use the dietary fat.
Our body uses the fat for:
1) Source of energy - Fat is the primary source of energy for sustained physical activity
2) Vitamin carrier - Fat is an important carrier of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, K
3) In synthesis of many hormones-
Body uses fat as a substrate to synthesize many hormones and enzymes essential for physiological function
4) Suppress hunger- Not having fat in our diet actually does not give us feeling of satiety and makes us consume more refined carbohydrates.
Avoiding healthy fats in our diet rob us of all these health advantages.
So which dietary fats are good for us and which one we must avoid?
Let's look at different types of dietary fats:
Trans-fatty acid:
These are processed fats. They are made by infusing hydrogen ions into the liquid oil so that food products can have longer shelf life. They are also known as partially hydrogenated and hydrogenated oils.
It is usually in vegetable shortening, margarine, crackers, cookies, snack foods, baked goods.
These processed fats are very unhealthy. In June 2015 the FDA announced its decision to ban artificial trans fat in the food supply and gave food manufacturers in the U.S. three years to completely remove trans fatty acids from food. So we do not have to worry about this fat after June 2018. But until then avoid any food product that list 'hydrogenated oil, partially hydrogenated oil or shortening' in its ingredient list.
Saturated fat:
It is called saturated fat as chemically in this kind of fat
all carbon atoms are saturated with hydrogen atoms. Usually saturated fat is solid at room temperature with few exceptions. Most of the saturated fat comes from animal sources- dairy products, meat, cheese, butter, baking goods.
Nutrition science on saturated fat is evolving and now more studies are coming out that saturated fat may not be as harmful as once thought especially whole milk.
However what is more important is what we replace it with. Trading saturated fat with refined carbohydrate in our diet could prove harmful. On the other hand replacing it with unsaturated fats can give many health advantages including lower risks of diabetes and obesity
Remember it is not the quantity but the quality of fat in our diet that affects our health outcome. And the best quality of fat is found in unsaturated fat.
Unsaturated Fat:
They are usually liquid at room temperature. They are heart healthy and must be part of our daily meals. Unsaturated fat actually improves our lipid profile by increasing good cholesterol in our blood. It also helps to reduce the inflammation.
Unsaturated fats are predominantly found in foods from plants eg. Vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds.
There are two different kind of unsaturated fats:
1) Monounsaturated fats: nuts, avocado, seeds, olive/peanut/canola oil.
2) Polyunsaturated fats- Fish, sunflower/safflower/soybean/flaxseed oils,
walnuts.
Omega 3 fatty acid is a polyunsaturated fatty acid that our body cannot synthesize and we must include in our diet. Fish high in omega-3 fatty acids include salmon, tuna, trout, mackerel, sardines, and herring.
Plant sources of omega-3 fatty acids include flaxseed (ground), oils (canola, flaxseed, soybean), and nuts and other seeds (walnuts, butternuts, and sunflower).
In summary:
Fat is an important part of a healthy diet. Choose foods with “good” unsaturated fats, limit foods high in saturated fat, and avoid “bad” trans fat.
Ditch the low-fat diet and start enjoying healthy fats in your diet. Remember you need to eat good fat to burn your bad fat !!!