Fat has gotten a bad name in the same way scales have been villainized. You will see low-fat options on many products. There are many low-fat diets out there and there are legitimate reasons to avoid fats. The reality is not all fat is bad for us and we learned from various experts we need some fats. To have balanced nutrition and operate well, we needed some fats. In this post, we will go through what we learned about fats and why we don’t fear them.
Separating Fact and Fiction Takes Clarifications
In an earlier post, we talked about the big three and why fat was important for the Body. If that is so, why does fat have such a bad rap? As with everything, the devil is in the details. Not all fats are good, bad, or created equal.
Let’s start with a quick 411 on the major types of fats
What we found challenging was understanding what was in what. In another post, we talked about where calories hide in items like nuts. Of course, this led us to stop eating nuts since they have so much fat. Oh wait, salmon has fat as does olive oil. There goes the salmon and pesto dishes. The home-fried chicken was right out! Not so much.
We are not going to try to explain as these fats have been studied extensively. We have linked to several really smart folks who can explain their chemistry and their impact on your body and health. All we want to do is give people a heads up of where to look why you need them and why ‘low-fat’ doesn’t always mean good for you. According to many such as Harvard Health and the USDA, you need fat as part of your DRI we mentioned in another post. Here’s the TL;DR: we walked away with:
Trans Fats Are Out
Let’s get Trans Fats out of the way first. There are two types; non-artificial and artificial. There are natural sources of trans fats that come from unaltered saturated fat. These are not the ones we have heard of as being bad for you. According to experts, while it may be best to avoid them they don’t have the same impact on our health as artificial trans fats.
Artificial trans fats are a non-starter in terms of being good for us to the point they have been banned in some shape or form in some countries like the US. Trans fats are also known by their other name which is PHO or partially hydrogenated oils. PHO is created by putting vegetable oil through a chemical and heating process to keep the fat solid at room temperature. Originally thought to be better than regular fats, that opinion has changed. You can make your own decisions on trans fat but they are now specifically called out on nutrition labels to help us avoid them.
Unsaturated Fats Are Good
All fats contain the same calories per serving. It is not that one is ‘less’ fatty than the other. Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated fats are triglycerides your body needs. They can be grossly generalized as fats that stay liquid at room temperature. Think nuts, vegetables, and olive oil as well as fish. If the fat comes from something that grows in the ground or it swims, the fat from it is fat your body needs. The exception to this generalization is the oil of fruit of tropical plants such as coconut or palm.
Saturated Fats Are Problematic
Saturated fats tend to come from meat, dairy, or tropical plants and are generally solid at room temperature. The labeling of unhealthy saturated fats is due to their impact on cholesterol levels. Of course, they are plentiful in some of our favorite foods like red meat, cheeses, and baked goods.
We found some evidence that newer studies are challenging the opinion that saturated fats are 100% bad for everyone. Cholesterol, and its impact on the body, maybe as much genetics as it is the food we eat. In any case, we still want to know how much we can have since they come at a high risk-to-reward ratio.
According to the American Heart Association, the guideline is only 6% of the fats you eat should be saturated. As usual, many health professionals disagree and we have seen as high as 10%. Let’s take the harder road and go for 6% for the sake of an example. For someone on a 2,000-calorie-a-day calorie budget that is 120 calories from saturated fat or 13 grams. At first glance that is a terrifying number. That is about a single slice of cheddar cheese, right?
Let’s Do Some Math
This is where we feel things get sideways. No, it is not a single slice. We need to revisit our nutrition label and do some math. Bear with me as we get nerdy with numbers and a word problem.
Question: How much cheddar cheese can I eat if I have a 2,000-calorie-a-day budget and want to control my saturated fat?
Additional Info Needed: According to Google a single slice of cheddar cheese averages 30% or 6 grams of saturated fat per ounce.
Answer: Right now I could eat 3 and ⅓ ounces of cheddar cheese to meet that 6 percent goal if I had no other saturated fat in my diet that day. That is simply adding up something from 30% to 100% which is straightforward. Crisis averted. We can even have a ⅓ lb. burger made from 80/20 beef with a slice of cheddar and stay within our goals if our calorie budget allows it.
We Can But Should We?
But should we scarf down that cheeseburger? What about switching to home-fried chicken to avoid trans fats? Empirically what we found was that we cheated on our diet less when we ate some level of fat in our meals. We found a good middle-of-the-road approach by creating that same sense of a ‘fat’ budget like our calorie budget. While that may not work for some with specific medical conditions, it worked for us. We aren’t into taking chances so we do get our cholesterol levels tested every year to make sure our choices are staying healthy.
Closing Thoughts
We discussed many of the high-level pros and cons of fat in our diets. Based on everything we read we we learned for our goals we shouldn’t fear fat. This post gave the evidence that we used to support the decision that our bodies need some fat. We also have provided information about some of the myths of fat through the disambiguation of the different types we learned. Based on all the learning and evidence we found, we embraced fat in our diet. Armed with this knowledge you can make your own informed decision instead of simply avoiding all fats unless otherwise directed by a health professional.