The word fat truly sounds unhealthy to most people, but it is actually a crucial nutrient that promotes proper body function
Granted that there are types of fats that are highly damaging to your health, but there are also good fats that can do a lot of wonders for your health, including fats that can help shed pounds.
If you are on a diet, you need to know which foods can give you good fats that can help improve your health, and which foods that you need to avoid due to its bad fat content.
Read on and learn if fats are good for you and see how fats can help you lose weight.
What are Fats?
As mentioned above, fats are vital nutrients which are actually one of three macronutrients that your body requires to function properly. This means that fat is an “essential” nutrient.
Dietary fat (1) provides essential fatty acids the promotes growth, healthy skin, improves vitamin absorption, regulation of bodily functions and above all, gives you energy.
Fats are usually soluble in organic solvents and insoluble in water, composing of numerous compounds.
There are several fat terms in the dictionary and these fat forms are different from each other.
Fat that exists in liquid form is oil. Oils are substances that don’t mix with other liquids such as water, and have greasy characteristics.
There are animal fats that comes from meats. Vegetable fats are those sourced from plants such as olives, coconut, corn, flax seed oil and nuts.
Fatty acids and lipids are also another forms of fat.
Types of Fats
To know if a particular food contains bad fats, you need to know the different types of fats to distinguish the beneficial ones from harmful fats.
Here are the different types of fats.
Saturated Fats
According to NCBI (2), saturated fats are fat molecules that have no double bonds between carbon molecules because they are saturated with hydrogen molecules.
Saturated fats are solid at room temperature, which is also the reason why this type of fat is also called “solid fat“.
Too much consumption of saturated fats can greatly increase your risk of cardiovascular diseases, stroke and many other chronic diseases.
So this type of fat is the one that you should highly avoid.
You can find saturated fats in meat products (beef, pork, lamb, etc.) chicken skin (poultry), dairy products, processed foods, pastries and many more.
Commercial oils such as palm oil, palm kernel oil, cocoa butter and coconut oil, are all packed with high levels of saturated fats, though they don’t contain cholesterol.
In addition to these foods, fried foods also contain significant levels of saturated fats.
Experts recommends that you limit your saturated fat intake to avoid developing irreversible health conditions. Choose lean meats instead of red meats and poultry without skin.
Plus, increase your consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish and choose low-fat dairy products.
Trans Fats
These type of fat is synthetically made and do not naturally occur. It is created through industrial process that mixes hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them solid.
This is the reason why trans fat is also called “partially hydrogenated oils“.
Like saturated fats, trans fat are unhealthy to humans and are basically not essential to our body. Increasing your trans fat consumption will increase your risk of developing coronary heart disease, stroke and many other undesirable health conditions (3).
Sadly, we cannot easily avoid trans fat these days as they can be found anywhere, cheap to produce and easy to use.
Trans fat foods include french fries, doughnuts, cookies, crackers, margarines, fast foods, canned goods and fried foods.
According to experts, you should limit your intake of trans fat to 5 to 6 percent of your total calorie intake, though even a small amount of trans fat can increase your risk of diseases.
In contrast, unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature and is classed as “good fats“, so they are highly beneficial to your health. These fats are sourced mostly from plant oils.
There are two types of unsaturated fats – monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats.
Monounsaturated Fats
While saturated and trans fats are solid in room temperature, monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature, though it start to harden when chilled.
Monounsaturated fats is a type of dietary fat and is highly beneficial for your health.
This fat is sourced from plant foods such as vegetable oils, nuts, avocados and many others.
It can benefit your health in various ways. First off, it can help lower your bad cholesterol levels. Cholesterol blocks your arteries which can lead to heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases (4).
Monounsaturated fats can also maintain and develop your cells.
Polyunsaturated Fats
These fats are fat molecules that have more than one unsaturated carbon bond in the molecule. This fat is also called double bond.
Like monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats have beneficial effects on your body, especially with regards to your heart.
Experts suggests, that moderate consumption of polyunsaturated fat foods can help reduce bad cholesterol levels in the blood, reduces your risk of inflammation and many others. This fat can significantly lower your risk of heart disease and stroke (5).
Polyunsaturated fats also contain nutrients and provides essential fats such as omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids.
The best sources of polyunsaturated fats include olive oils, soybean oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, nuts and seeds.
Oily fish such as salmon, trout, mackerel, sardines and herring, are also good sources of polyunsaturated fat.
Fats that Can Help You Lose Weight
Okay, now that we know which fat is good and which is not, it is time to identify which foods are ideal for weight loss.
There are dozens of foods that are marketed as a “fat burning foods”, those foods that stimulates fat loss by increasing metabolism, reducing appetite and overall food intake.
Certain foods that are rich in unsaturated fats can offset hunger, improves appetite control and help boost energy levels, all of which leads to natural weight loss.
Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids are known to reduce hunger (6). This include oily fish such as salmon. Plus, fish is also high in protein, which can help your workout regimen if you plan to put up some serious muscles.
Another food group that has the potential to burn body fat is nuts. Nuts are nutritious and are known to help suppress appetite.
Chili peppers are known as energy and metabolism booster, while also promote craving reductions. These are the reasons why capsicum (an active agent in chili peppers) is widely used as a fat burning agent in the slimming industry.
Other fatty foods that can help you lose weight include eggs, coconut oil, peas, yogurt, green tea and many others.
Bottom Line
Most people are afraid of fats because they don’t known which foods to avoid and which one are good for their health.
As you can see from the facts above, good fats such as polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are significantly important to our health.
These fats also promotes other health benefits such as anti-obesity, anti-inflammation, and possible anti-cancer as well.
But before you indulge yourself on eating good fats, it is important that you choose the right kind of fat and eat them in moderation. It is advisable to replace saturated and trans fat in your diet with healthy, fat foods.
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References:
A Healthy Approach to Dietary Fats: Understanding the Science and Taking Action to Reduce Consumer Confusion
by: Ann G Liu, Nikki A Ford, Frank B Hu, Kathleen M Zelman, Dariush Mozaffarian, and Penny M Kris-Etherton
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577766/
Saturated Fat – A Never Ending Story?
by: Karianne Svendsen, Erik Arnessen and Kjetil Retterstol
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5642188/
Trans-Fat – Sources, Health Risks, and Alternative Approach – A Review
by: Vandana Dhaka, Neelam Gulia, kulveer Singh Ahlawat, and Bhupender Singh Khatkar
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551118/
Monounsaturated Fats from Plant and Animal Sources in Relation to Risk of Coronary Heart Disease Among US Men and Women
by: Geng Zong, Yanping Li, Laura Sampson, Lauren W Dougherty, Walter C Willett, Anne J Wanders, Marjan Alssema, Peter L Zock, Frank B Hu, and Qi Sun
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5875103/
Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids for the Primary and Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease
by: Asmaa S Abdelhamnid, Nicole Martin, Charlene Bridges, Julii S Brainard, Xia Wang, Tracey J Brown, Sarah Hanson, Oluseyi F Jimoh, Sarah M Ajabnoor, Jatherine HO Deane, Fuian Song, and Lee Hooper
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6513571/
A Diet Rich in Long Chain Omega-3 Fatty Acids Modulates Satiety in Overweight and Obese Volunteers During Weight Loss
by: Dolores Parra, Alfons Ramel, Narcisa Bandarra, Mairead Kiely, J Alfredo Martinez, Inga Thorsdottir
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18602429/
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