Healthy Fats!!!

Ok, so sorry I didn't get a post up last week, I really meant to, but it just didn't happen and I don't even have a good excuse.

So last time I promised I would talk about fats and why we need a whole 20% in our diets. I know you've all heard there is such a thing as good fats, but the question is "why are they good?"

Well, this is how it works..... there are four kinds of fats you should be looking for on your nutrition labels: Transfats, saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats (In order from worst to best).

Saturated fats come from animals. It is found in any animal product, especially red meat. It is solid at room temperature, and can be heated into liquid (like the grease from ground beef or yummy chorizo).

Transfats are man-made saturated fats used to preserve foods such as twinkies. I'm not going to look up the stats, but I remember something about transfats killing people 5 times as fast as saturated fats. Important Note: by law, food companies are not required to list transfats on the label as long as there is .5 grams per serving or less. Tricky tricky. So even if transfats are not listed, you can tell if there might be transfats in the food when you read the ingredients listed. It would say partially-hydrogenated......whatever.

Polyunsaturated fats and Monounsaturated fats come from vegetables and they are liquid at room temperature. They can be found in avocados, olives, peanuts, almonds, any kind of nut really, sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, soybeans, etc. Cooking oil is obviously made of these fats, because it is liquid at room temperature.

To answer the question, "why are they good?" It is because they do the opposite of bad fats. Just to review, bad fats are transfats and saturated fats, and good fats are polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats. Bad fats increase your LDL cholesterol and clog your arteries, causing stokes and heart attacks later in life. Good fats increase your HDL cholesterol which helps to move out the LDL cholesterol to unclog your arteries and decrease the risk of stroke and heart attack. Combine good fats with a low sodium diet and exercise, and you can have a healthy heart for life.

In closing, we do need some fats in our diet to stay healthy, but remember to try to keep it around 20%.