Nowadays a lot of people are trying diets to lose weight or even try to improve their health.
However,doing it without taking in consideration the fact that our body needs certain fats to work properly, might lead to long term damage. Because of this, I chose two write this article today in hopes of convincing you that there are multiple types of fats that are actually good for your system and health.
Firstly, what are fats for? They are energy givers and help with hormone synthesis. Like us humans, fats are of different “personalities” and types.We have saturated fats, unsaturated fats, trans fats, monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats and dietary fat recommendations. I will be concentrating on the main four, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, which are considered “healthy fats”, and be saturated and trans fats, that are seen as “unhealthy” ones. Don’t get me wrong, all fats have the same number of calories per gram, 9, however the effect they have on your body is completely different.
Monounsaturated fats come from food like avocados, that have become a very popular food recently, peanut butter, nuts and more.
This kind of fat got its name from the one unsaturated carbon bond that its molecules have. Now that we have got that out of the way, let’s talk about the positive effect it has on our health. On the one hand, these help to reduce cholesterol levels, thus lowering the possibility of you having a stroke or a heart attack, and who wouldn’t want that? On the other hand, by eating this type of fat that contains E vitamins, you provide your body an important antibiotic vitamin.
Now we have the polyunsaturated fats that are also looked upon on as healthy. The explanation as to why these have been called like this is a little harder to explain, but basically, it’s because they have more unsaturated carbon bonds in the molecule. Besides being a copycat and doing the same things as the monounsaturated fats, these also provide some essential types of fat that our body isn’t capable of producing, even though it needs to survive. For example, we have the omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids that are a necessity because they have many functions in the body, such as thinning blood so that blood clumps don’t form. As to where to find them, they are present in numerous fish, like salmon, can you imagine having a cooked delicious salmon with some rice, my mouth is watering, oils or even tofu.
Secondly, let’s talk about the bad guys here, the saturated and trans fats. I call them so, because, compared to the other ones, they don’t really help us or our health. Fats like this are known for rising your LDL* cholesterol and also the possibility of vascular dementia or a heart attack. Trans and saturated fats consist of processed food, animal fat, butter, and your beloved fast food, that comes from places like McDonalds.
To sum up, if you want your health to improve, me and the AHA** recommend switching from trans and processed fats to monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, however excluding “bad” fats all together isn’t a good decision, since they have some positive aspects to them. At the end of the day, the best way to keep yourself energised and happy is to have a balanced diet, that contains mostly good fats.
*LDL=low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
**AHA=The American Heart Association
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