Yes, fats are something that you definitely need to be conscious about when deciding which types of foods to eat, but some fats, when eaten in moderation, are actually very healthy for your body. 

Before we get into the good fats, let’s start with the bad.  If fats can be so bad, then why do food companies and restaurants add them to their food?  It’s just like buttering your corn-on-the-cob; it makes it taste better, and the food feels better on the roof of your mouth.  That, in itself, sells the food.  Because of this, you really need to be conscious of the choices you make when deciding what to eat.

Fats really can be broken up into three categories.  Category one is the dangerous fats that you should avoid at all costs.  Category two is the fats that you should avoid eating a lot of, but when eaten in moderation, can actually be beneficial to your body.  Category three is the fats that have been shown to prevent diseases such as heart disease: the “healthy” fats.¹

To start with the fats you should run away from brings us to trans fats, the fats that are also referred to as hydrogenated fats or partially hydrogenated fats.

Fats are made up of fatty acids, and when a fat goes through the hydrogenation process, an unnatural form of fat results, trans-fatty acid.  Hydrogenation means that hydrogen atoms are added to fats to make them solid at room temperature.  Basically, they’re less likely to spoil this way, and their expiration date is a lot longer than if they didn’t go through the hydrogenation process.

The problem with trans-fatty acid is that it raises your “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and lowers your “good” cholesterol (HDL) even more than saturated fat does!  This means your arteries can clog easier, and as a result, cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, and even cancer can result. 

In order to do your best at avoiding these dangerous fats, you need to steer clear of foods such as cookies, pastries, cakes, many cereals, many processed foods, etc.  Also, limiting your use of butters, margarines, mayonnaise, and salad dressings will also help in eliminating these fats from your eating habits.

Don’t just depend on food labels to tell you whether or not the food you’re eating contains trans fat.  The FDA doesn’t require an amount of trans fat under 0.5g to be shown.¹  Basically, 0.4g of trans fat appears as 0g on the food label.  Let’s say you eat two cookies that show 0g trans fat per cookie, but actually contain 0.4g trans fat per cookie; that means you just ate close to 1g of the “bad stuff”!  Your safest bet is to look at the ingredients instead.  If you can find hydrogenated fats, partially hydrogenated fats, or shortening on the ingredients label of a food, steer clear of it.

The next group of fats is the ones that are harmful to the body when eaten in excess, but when eaten in moderation, they can actually help the body out.  These fats are considered the saturated fats and polyunsaturated, omega-6 fats.  Both, when eaten excessively, can result in clotting of the arteries, which leads to inflammation of the arteries and increased risk for cardiovascular disease, arthritis, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.¹  

Even though saturated fat and omega-6 fat can be harmful when too much of either is eaten, they’re also beneficial to you if you control what you eat.  By consuming no more than 10% of your calories from saturated fat (based on a 2000-calorie diet, no more than 20 grams per day)², you can protect yourself against dangerous microorganisms, protect your cell membranes, protect your liver from toxins, help prevent breast cancer, provide your body with a good source of energy, help prevent colon cancer, and aid your exercise efforts in losing body fat.^1,3  The truth is, there’s no need to look for sources of saturated fat because you already get enough in the food you eat.  You really just need to limit the types of foods that contain saturated fat.  Foods such as most fast-food choices, whole-milk, fried foods, bacon, hot dogs, cold cuts, red meats, palm and coconut oil, and processed foods are high in saturated fat.  In fact, if you’re a guy, it’s extra important that you limit your red meat intake because it’s been shown that men who eat a lot of red meat increase their chances of prostate cancer by two to three times compared to men who don’t eat a lot of red meat!¹ 

With omega-6 fats, the problem is that many of the foods you eat are loaded with it, and you already know what happens when you eat too much of it.  However, by eating omega-6 foods in moderation, you can benefit from healthy cell membranes, healthy skin, and efficient hormones; they also contain fat-soluble vitamins that are essential to your body.⁴ 

Some good sources of omega-6 fatty acids are leafy vegetables, seeds, pecans, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, grains, and soybean oil.^1,2

The next category of fats, the “healthy” fats consist of monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated, omega-3 fatty acids.  These fats are great for the health of your heart, skin, hair, brain, nerves, growth of the body, and possibly the functioning of the immune system.  Some good sources of monounsaturated fats are extra-virgin or virgin olive oil, natural and organic peanut butter, avocados, olives, and macadamia nuts, as well as walnuts, almonds, and hazelnuts that are plain/raw (i.e. not roasted, salted, etc.).¹ 

Omega-3 fats are a special kind of fat because we actually don’t get a lot of it.  There really needs to be a balance between our consumption of omega-6 and omega-3 fats, but in reality, we eat way too much omega-6 fats and not enough of omega-3 fats.  With this type of imbalance, the risk for diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease is thought to increase.³  It’s recommended that you consume no less than 3% and no more than 7% of your calories from omega-6 and omega-3 fats combined.²  This means that we have to do a better job at eating less foods with omega-6 and more foods with omega-3.

Among some of the benefits of omega-3 fats are that it helps decrease the inflammation of arteries, reverse the signs of aging of the brain, it helps with preventing ADHD, reducing the risk of stroke, it helps with reducing blood pressure, and just like omega-6 fat, they also contain fat-soluble vitamins that are essential to your body.¹

Some good sources of omega-3 fats are breast milk, wild salmon, herring, tuna, lake trout, walnuts, flaxseed, and wheat germ.²

When trying to figure out how to find that balance between omega-6 fats and omega-3 fats, the best approach to take is to try and shoot for a 5g of omega-6 to 1g of omega-3 ratio.  Eating more fish and less meat will help with hitting this ratio, and in fact, by eating 2-3 fish meals per week (10 ounces total), it has been shown that these individuals suffer a stroke half the amount of times as non-fish eaters.  So eat more fish, as well as a little bit of vegetable oil, to find that balance between the two fats.² 

So where can you start with limiting the amount of fat you eat each day?  Our biggest sources of added fats are oil, shortening, mayonnaise, butter, margarine, salad dressing, cream cheese, heavy cream, and sour cream.  If you can just take the simple step of limiting these unhealthy fats, you’ll make some great strides in improving the healthiness of your eating.  Also it may come as a surprise, but the recommended serving size for meat is about 3 ounces, and the average small, fast-food hamburger meets that requirement.  The average steak served at a restaurant tends to be a whopping 12-16 ounces, and on top of that, a 4-ounce hamburger from a fast-food restaurant has about 23 grams of protein and 20 grams of fat.  That means that since every gram of protein, as well as carbs, equals 4 calories and every gram of fat equals 9 calories, you’re getting more than half of your calories from fat by eating that hamburger!² 

It’s recommended that you consume less than 30% of your calories from fat, and for weight loss, it should really be closer to 20%.⁵  Another way to look at it is based on a 2000-calorie diet, you should try and eat no more than 65 grams of fat per day.²

“So what are some steps to help reduce the amount of fat I eat, Dan?”  Very good question.

According to the American Council on Exercise, a good start is to replace whole milk with skim milk, bacon with low-fat turkey bacon, fried chicken with baked, skinless chicken, butter with jam, cookies with vanilla wafers, chocolate with jelly beans, and swiss cheese with mozzarella cheese.

Some other steps you can take to reduce the amount of fat you eat are to choose grilling, roasting, and baking over frying; trim visible fat and skin from meat and poultry; make rice and potato recipes without the fat (i.e., butter) it calls for; add a little water or fat-free, sugar-free yogurt to salad dressing bottles; use only half of the meat a recipe calls for, and replace the space left by the non-used meat with vegetables; let broth refrigerate, and then scrap off the solidified fat before using it in a recipe; choose mustard or ketchup over mayonnaise; choose bean burritos over beef tacos; eat turkey subs instead of cheeseburgers; choose English muffins and jelly over bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits; choose veggie pizza over pepperoni pizza; and if necessary, pick fast-food salads using only a quarter of the dressing, chili, or a plain baked potato instead of a hamburger or a fried fish or chicken sandwich.²   

Fat has so many healthy benefits to it.  It’s your main source of stored energy from excess calories eaten because since it doesn’t hold onto water, it’s able to pack tighter and be more concentrated compared to glycogen and the water it holds.  It also provides protective padding to your vital organs and joints, it provides insulation under your skin, it keeps your hair and skin healthy, it keeps you feeling full for a longer period of time by slowing digestion, controlling your blood sugar, and stimulating satiety hormones⁵, etc.  Unfortunately, there are also many negatives to fat, and as seen in the fast-food hamburger example I just talked about, many fats are hidden in our foods.  Some fats, such as the fat on chicken breast, are able to be seen and taken off, but since most fats are unseen, it leaves us eating a lot of fat that we didn’t know we were eating.  Because of this, there’s no need to go out to try and find more foods that contain fat; you get plenty of it already.  What you really need to do is start looking at the ingredients labels of the foods you’re already eating and get rid of the ones that have those dangerous fat ingredients in them.  You don’t need to go on a low-fat diet, which actually isn’t very effective at weight loss because of all the added sugar and extra calories in low-fat foods, but if you can start making better choices with the sources of fats you eat, not only will you be healthier, but you’ll also take bigger steps toward achieving your weight loss goals. 

References:

¹ Colbert, D. (2007). The seven pillars of health. (1^st ed). Lake Mary, FL.: Siloam.
² Sizer, F., & Whitney, E. (2003). Nutrition concepts and controversies, (9^th ed). Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
³ Lee, R. (2007). The millionaire workout, (1^st ed). New Canaan, CT.: Okenzie Publishing.
⁴ American Council on Exercise (2003). ACE personal trainer manual: The ultimate resource for fitness professionals, (3^rd ed). San Diego, Ca.: American Council on Exercise.
⁵ The National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), 2001.

Dan Falkenberg, BA, ACE-CPT, NASM-PES

Dan Falkenberg can be reached at DanFalkenberg.com.