Not all fats are created equal
There are many different types of fats. The three main categories are: saturated fats (primarily animal fats); unsaturated fats (primarily from plant source and from fish), which include both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat; and synthetic fats, which include the trans fats, or hydrogenated fats.
Harmful fats:
Saturated fat is fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids have no double bonds between the carbon atom of the fatty acid chain; hence, they are fully saturated with hydrogen atoms. It is usually solid or waxy at room temperature, saturated fat is most found in animal products — such as red meat, poultry, butter and whole milk. Other foods high in saturated fat include coconut, palm and other tropical oils.
Meat from land animals tends to contain saturated fats because these creatures are typically warm-blooded. Think of it this way: Fats are more fluid when warmer, so at body temperature, saturated fats are still flexible. Thus beef and pork have higher amounts of saturated fats than other foods.
On the other hand, the flesh of cold-blooded animals like fish contains predominantly polyunsaturated fats, which are more fluid at colder temperatures. If fish had predominantly saturated fats, the fat would solidify in cold water and the fish would die.
Range-fed beef cattle, although their meat has saturated fat, have lower concentrations than commercially raised, grain-fed beef cattle, which have 500% more saturated fat in their tissues.
Saturated fats can increase your risk of heart disease by increasing your total and LDL(“bad”) cholesterol.
Trans fat are unsaturated, it result from adding hydrogen to vegetable oil through a process called hydrogenation. The reason the food industry created trans fats is that these fats are very resistant to oxidation (or going rancid), giving foods with high trans fat content a very long and stable shelf life. Trans fats include partially hydrogenated fats, margarine, and shortening; today they can be found in every aisle of the supermarket — such as crackers, cookies and cakes — and in fried food.s, such as doughnuts and French fries. Your can keep that jar of Crisco in your cabinet for thirty years and still make a fine pie crust with it.
But just as bacteria (which make food go bad) have difficulty in digesting the fats, so do humans. The body doesn’t have natural enzymes that can easily break them down. Intake of trans fats has been associated with increased rates of cardiovascular disease and cholesterol levels, as well as increased incidence of cancer and diabetes.
Dietary Cholesterol — Your body naturally manufactures all of the cholesterol it needs, but you also get cholesterol from animal products, such as meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, lard and butter.
Dietary cholesterol isn’t technically a fat, but it’s found in food derived from animal sources. Intake of dietary cholesterol increases blood cholesterol levels, but not as much as saturated and trans fats do, and not to the same degree in all people.
Healthy fats
Unsaturated fats is a fat or fatty acid in which there are one or more double bonds in the fatty acid chain.
- Monounsaturated fat contains one double bond and it remains liquid at room temperature but may start to solidify in the refrigerator. Foods high in monounsaturated fat include olive, peanut and canola oils. Avocados and most nuts also have high amounts of monounsaturated fat.
- polyunsaturated fat contains more than one double bond and is usually liquid at room temperature and in the refrigerator. Foods high in polyunsaturated fats include vegetable oils, such as safflower, corn, sunflower, soy and cottonseed oils.
- Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fats found mostly in seafood. Good sources of omega-3s include fatty, cold-water fish, such as salmon, mackerel and herring. Flaxseeds, flax oil and walnuts also contain omega-3 fatty acids and small amounts are found in soybean and canola oils
When choosing fats, your best options are unsaturated fats: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. These fats, if used in place of others, can lower your risk of heart disease by reducing the total and LDL cholesterol levels in your blood.
Omega-3 fatty acids, may be especially beneficial to your heart. Omega-3s appear to decrease the risk of coronary artery disease. They may also protect against irregular heartbeats and help lower blood pressure levels.