Fats of the Land

Trans Fats

These are manufactured fats. Manufactures change natural fat to trans fats in order to prolong the shelf life of bread, milk substitutes and desserts. A tiny amount exists in nature, but the problem dosage comes from food produced in factories.

Source:
Manufactured food especially baked goods. Imitation dairy products, hard margarines and some hard cheese. Trans fats make shortening harder.

Benefits:
NONE

Caution:
Read food labels; the government now requires that trans fats be listed.

Danger:
Trans fats are associated with raising bad cholesterol and cam float around the system getting in the way of nutrients. Also, the residue can be solid at body temperature, so it’s like was floating in your bloodstream.




Saturated Fat

This is the bad fat blamed for clogging arteries, causing heart attacks, and strokes, and breast cancer.

Source:
Red meat, poultry, whole dairy products, such as milk and yogurt, lard and butter.

Benefit:
It’s a powerful source of fuel. Some saturated fat in the diet suppresses appetite for hours longer than other fats. That’s why the Atkins diet worked for some people.

Caution:
Foods fried in saturated fat have vastly superior flavor. Be careful at restaurants. Those really great-tasting rolls could be made with lard or butter, and you won’t know.

Danger:
Eat like this for a few years and it will probably clog your blood vessels. Also, the more saturated fat you eat, the higher your bad cholesterol. And it seems to lower good cholesterol/

Hint:
The leanest meat will deliver all the saturated fat you need in your diet. If you’re a food addict, or you like great gourmet meals, you need to exercise a lot more to work off this fat.

Monounsaturated Fat

These are considered good fats because the move through the bloodstream without clogging up the works and do some cleaning in the process.

Source:
Monounsaturated fatty acids are found mostly in some plants, such as olives. Olive oil is the most popular source of monounsaturated fat. Omega -3 fats come from eating fish oil or canola oil and cam be purchased in pill or liquid form.

Benefit:
They appear to reduce bad cholesterol. Olive oil is valued because it replaces the use of butter and margarine. Omega-3 doesn’t allow sticky fats and platelets to accumulate in narrow blood vessels and helps move cholesterol back to the liver for processing.

Caution:
Olive oil and fish oil have the same calorie content as any other fat: 9 calories per gram. Olive oil is 13% saturated fat.

Danger:
Too much omega-3 fat in the blood cam slow blood clotting a tiny bit. It takes a lot to be a health risk alone, but be careful with fish-oil pills if you are taking a prescription blood thinner or aspirin.

Hint:
You could get all the omega-3 fats you need be eating 6 to 8 ounces of fatty fish three times a week. When cooking with olive oil, use just enough to lubricate the pan. Don’t immerse your food.


Polyunsaturated Fat

Generally, this is oil extracted from vegetables – soy mostly, but also corn and safflower oil. The Food and Drug Administration says polyunsaturated fatty acids tend to lower levels of good and bad cholesterol.

Source:
Wesson and Mazola oils, margarine, and some dairy substitutes that use plant oil, such as coffee creamers.

Benefit:
The only real benefit is that it’s not saturated fat……..

Caution:
It’s still oil: 9 calories per gram. Many people and fast-food restaurants deep-fry with vegetable oil. Dr. James Shoemaker a researcher with St. Louis University School of Medicine, says the confidence in vegetable oil is undeserved. Vegetable oil is a very new substance to the human diet, he said.
Humans didn’t start eating vegetable oil until the second half of the 20th century. Then, when saturated fat got a bad rap in the early 1970’s, vegetable oil’s popularity took off. Even fast-food restaurants stopped frying in lard and started using vegetable oil.
While that reduced the amount of saturated fat, it didn’t reduce the calories. One piece of fried chicken, for example can deliver up to 300 additional calories because breading has been bathed in oil.

Danger:
Some early studies showed a possible association with cancer.

Hint:
Read food labels. Polyunsaturated fat is added to a lot of prepared foods and used to fry a lot of French fries, meats, and many other nibble foods. At home, don’t fry. If you must use this oil, brush it on the pan and sauté at a low heat; don’t submerge you food in any fat.