Fats - what are they?
Fats are essential to human life, we need them to survive and function, but what are they?
Fat, oil and lipids (all similar but very different) are often mistaken for each other.
Fat - is generally described as solid at room temperature
Oil - is a fat that is liquid at room temperature
lipids - is the fancy name for fats within organic nature.
-- well that probably didn't help solve anything! but that's the scientific breakdown of fats.
So what types of fats are there to get called these names?
We have:
Saturated fats - these are normally solid at room temperature and normally come in the form of cheese, milk and in meat. There is also a much higher level of saturated fats in butter, cakes, cookies, etc...
Saturated fats have the potential to raise your cholesterol if eaten in a high amount, generally 10% of your calorie intake should be from saturated fat
Trans fat - This is a man made fat through hydrogenation, this helps increase the length of time that an item stays 'tasty' and appealing without eroding or decaying. In the UK trans fats are not as common as in the USA but trans fats definitely raise your cholesterol - so avoid this as much as possible! This comes in the form of: processed foods, cookies, salad dressings and jar sauces and much more.
Unsaturated fats - these are the type of fats you want!
There are two types of unsaturated fats: monounsaturated fat & polyunsaturated (stay with me here... gets a bit complicated!)
monounsaturated fats - this type of fat is in avocados, nuts, vegetable oils and these will help lower your bad cholesterol and help increase good cholesterol
polyunsaturated fats - this breaks down even further into 2 'sub-categories' -- omega-3 fatty acids & omega-6 fatty acids.
These types of fats are generally found in sunflower oils, soybean and corn oils, also in seafoods.
Omega-3 is specifically in soybeans, walnuts, flaxseed, salmon, anchovies, sardines etc... and you want to get a lot of these into your diet!
Omega-6 is specifically in oils, vegetable, corn and olive - you want some of these to help get those good fats!
So there you have it... a -hopefully - easy to understand breakdown of fats that you need.
So.. morale of the story... FATS ARE GOOD FOR YOU - if you get the right ones... SUGAR is the enemy, stay away from that!
