When we talk about fats,it’s easy to think of obesity. For decades,people have been trying to figure out exactly what causes obesity,because then we could simply fix that and stop worrying. Unfortunately,we still don’t know exactly the answer to that problem. Although low-fat and no-fat products have been introduced,obesity rate continues to rise. Though in recent years,things seem to come to a change…
Good fats? Bad fats?
Dietary fats can be divided into saturated fats and unsaturated fats. Saturated fats get there name from their fatty acid tails being saturated. Their structure allows their molecules to pack together densely,so saturated fats are usually solids at room temperature. Most animal fats are saturated. Unsaturated fats have an unsaturated fatty acid tail. These fatty acids are kinked where there are double bonds between carbon atoms. This structure makes most unsaturated fats liquids at room temperature. Unsaturated fats appear in fish,nuts and olive oil.
Omega-3 Fatty Acids
This is the only kind of fatty acid that the human body can’t make,so we have to get them via food. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fish oil,nuts and many vegetable oils.
Trans Fats
The unsaturated fats we discussed before are naturally occuring. However,they can be man made as well. These man made unsaturated fats are called trans fats. Trans fats are usually found in highly processed fats and oils used for deep frying that is reheated many times. Trans fats are bad for our health because they increase the amount of LDL(low density lipoprotein) and decrease the amount of HDL(high density lipoprotein). This promotes arterial plaques and increases the risk of heart disease,as shown in the pictures. If you are interested in LDL and HDL, wait for it,I’ll write a post on it in the future.
Although saturated fats also increase LDL,they haven’t been shown to decrease HDL or cause plaques as much as trans fats. But the biggest problem with trans fats is that the body isn’t able to get ride of them. We can work out and burn our fat storage,but that doesn’t work for trans fats.
Suming up
Having everything we talked about in mind,here’s the final suggestion: Enjoy reasonable amounts of unsaturated fat,eat limited amouts of saturated fat and try to avoid trans fats.
Pretty good!