THE ARTICLE
It’s impossible to escape today’s headlines that remind us again and again about the obesity epidemic and its repercussions on our health. Excess body fat can lead to overweight, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and blood sugar problems, which in turn can lead to heart disease and diabetes. These are serious problems indeed. We are often told that the only way to avoid these consequences is to switch to low fat or no fat foods, which will help us prevent weight gain. As a result of these messages, it has become commonly accepted that anything related to fat is our enemy, when actually “being fat” is the real enemy. Fat in itself is not the problem. In fact, in our efforts to eliminate most or all dietary fats from our lives, we may be doing ourselves more harm than good.
Healthy Fats are Not to Blame for Heart Disease
Research has shown that heart disease and diabetes are not the consequences of any single food, type of fat, or lifestyle habit. Instead, these illnesses are the result of a combination of factors related to our modern diet and lifestyle. These factors include consuming too much vegetable oil and hydrogenated oils, eating too many processed carbohydrates like sugar and white flour, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, smoking, and not exercising. We also don’t generally get enough selenium or vitamin E, which are antioxidants that protect us from free radicals that contribute to the development of disease.
For your health and for your waistline, it is very important to consume healthy fats which, in addition to the benefits above, can actually lower levels of bad cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart disease, all without adding unwanted pounds. Fats are an important source of energy, they insulate the body, and they provide transportation for fat-soluble vitamins throughout the body. Certain dietary fats have also been shown to improve the immune system, reduce inflammation, and even help you burn excess body fat.
Here’s an example of a good fat and a bad fat: Tropical oils like coconut oil are rich in antimicrobial fats that protect us from arterial plaque that can lead to heart disease. However, hydrogenated oil (a type of trans fat) that is rancid or damaged by frying promotes cell death and plaque buildup in our arteries. Unfortunately, tropical oils have all but disappeared from our food supply, due to our fear of all saturated fats. However, restaurant and fast-food franchises continue to use hydrogenated oils for frying, despite recent efforts to curb their use.
Saturated Fats versus Trans Fats
You may be wondering what the difference is between saturated fats and trans fats, both of which have gotten a bad name in recent years. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. They are found in meat, eggs, milk and other dairy products, butter and cheese, and tropical oils. They are stable and do not tend to go rancid even when used for cooking. Saturated fats increase your “good” HDL cholesterol levels, which reduces your risk of heart disease by helping to remove plaque from your artery walls.
There are three kinds of saturated fats: short chain, medium chain, and long chain. The short and medium chain fats have fewer calories than the long chain type, and they are used immediately for energy and, as long as you don’t consume them in excess, are not stored as body fat. Therefore these kinds of fats are both healthy and do not interfere with your weight loss program. You can find short and medium chain fats in butter and tropical oils like coconut oil. Olive oil is a saturated fat that is rich in antioxidants. However, it is of the long chain type, so it can contribute to weight gain. Use just what you need.
Unlike saturated fats, which are solid at room temperature, trans fats are liquid oils that are made solid through hydrogenation, a heating process. These solid fats are very unhealthy fats that are used in all kinds of processed foods, particularly margarine and packaged baked goods and snacks. These fats are used to prolong the shelf life of food as well as for frying. Also unlike saturated fats, trans fats lower good HDL cholesterol, raise bad LDL cholesterol, lower your immune response and create blood sugar management problems. Simply changing your use of margarine to butter or olive oil can significantly improve your health!
So how can we take this information and use it on a daily basis to know what fats are going to help us in our quest to be healthy and lose weight? Here are some specifics you can use as part of a balanced diet:
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For cooking, use olive oil or butter instead of margarine. Avoid cooking with virgin or extra-virgin oils because they will burn more easily than regular olive oil. The virgin oils are best used on salads, in small quantities.
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You can even use lard or duck fat for cooking, which are better for you than margarine or any kind of hydrogenated vegetable oil.
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Avoid canola oil and vegetable shortening such as Crisco, both of which go rancid easily.
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Start reading labels. If you see hydrogenated vegetable oil in the ingredient list, don’t buy it.
What About Low Fat and No Fat?
Products called low fat and no fat have had something put in them to replace the fat taken out. That something is usually some form of carbohydrates, to maintain a desirable taste and texture. Those carbohydrates add calories, so low fat does not necessarily mean low calorie. Remember that calories are important to our weight loss efforts. Everything we eat, including carbohydrates, fats, or proteins, are stored as body fat if we eat more than we expend through exercise or daily activities. Not just fat is stored as fat, everything is, if we don’t need it for energy. So you can’t count on low fat or no fat products as a solution for weight loss.
As you can see, far from being the evil substance fat has been made out to be, many fats are both necessary and beneficial to health and weight loss. So instead of trying to eliminate fats from your diet, choose the good fats in moderation, and enjoy them! You may even find that, in addition to losing weight, you are looking and feeling better than ever before.
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