An essential part of any healthy diet is to have a reasonable amount of fat. The problem is that there is so much gobbledegook talked about fat, who can blame you for not knowing which are good fats and which are bad.
So, here’s your definitive crash course on fats:
Let’s be quite clear about this, your body needs a certain amount of fat – and even cholesterol – to function properly. Fats are essential in the building of the body’s cell structure. However, there are fats…and there are fats!
Trans Fats:
The one fat you do not want to eat at all!
Top of the list of no no fats are Trans Fats. These are man made fats that result from taking a polyunsaturated vegetable oil which has at least two sets of hydrogen molecules missing and is liquid at room temperature. This is then heated in the presence of hydrogen gas. This causes the base oil to acquire a full set of hydrogen atoms – just like a saturated fat and unlike poly, which has at least two sets missing or mono oils, such as olive oil, which has one set missing. It is now more or less solid at room temperatures, just like saturated fat.
However, trans fats do so much more damage than even saturated fat, you’d be better off with butter!
In 1993 the Harvard Nurses Study, when the eating habits of over 80,000 women were monitored, it was found those that ate large amounts of trans fats were 60% more likely to develop coronary heart disease than those who eat none, or very little of this material. It appears the Trans Fats have a negative impact on cholesterol by increasing the levels of lipoprotein A, which is something you do not want.
But why do the manuafacturers go to all this trouble? It’s entirely commercial: trans fats, like saturated fat, will keep for ages. More lively fats, like olive oil, have a shorter shelf life before they oxidise and go rancid. Trans Fats are an artificial fat
Pick up any packet of cookies and you will probably see, near the top of the ingredients list (indicating there is a lot of it) the legend: “Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil”. If you are in the supermarket, quickly put the packet down again. It makes little difference if you are a pre-menopausal woman, who imagines she is immune from heart disease, you are still storing up trouble for yourself, by putting this item in your mouth. I will also bet you, if you find that ingredient in a product, you will also find refined white flour (way up top at 95 on our list of high Glycaemic carbs).
Don’t think you are safe from trans fats, if you keep your hand out of the cookie jar! trans fats, or its alias, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, pops up in the most unexpected places: candy, salad dressings and mayo, bread, potato chips and most margarines.
Saturated Fats:
The next worse fat.
These include saturated fats, such as you find in meat, butter, lard, coconut oil, palm oil and other fats that are nearly solid at room temperature. The slightly better fats than these are the polyunsaturated vegetable oils, which are liquid at room temperature. These include corn oil, although most of these oils are actually a mixture of polyunsaturated, saturated and monounsaturated oil. Confusing, isn’t it.
Fear not. If you laid all the “experts” that argue the merits of this or that oil end ot end, they would not reach a conclusion! You can do no better than restrict your intake of oils to the tried and tested ones that have been consumed for centruries and where the evidence is right there in the human populations that have used these health giving oils.
Polyunsaturated Oils:
These come from vegetable sources, such as sunflowers, and are far better for you than saturated fat. But perhaps not quite as good as the next two fats . . .
Olive Oil:
The best fat of all!
The main plank of these greatly beneficial oils is Olive Oil. Always go for the cold, first pressed version of this oil, know as extra virgin olive oil. This oil has about 73% of monounsaturated oil, known as Omega 9. It also has about 8% polyunsaturated oil. Always go for the cold, first pressed version of this oil, know as extra virgin olive oil. This marvellous substance, is the cornerstone of the famed Mediterranean diet. It’s been used for about 6,000 years, so it’s tried and tested. Olive oil, which is a form of fat known as oleic acid contains oleuropein and squalene, which can protect cholestorol from oxidation.
Rape seed oil does have a similar percentage of monounsaturated oil, but it is not as tried and tested as olive oil, so best stick with the real thing.
In Crete, noted for its long living and healthy natives, they actually drink it by the glass! However, that is not recommended if you want to lose weight, because, as healthy as it is, olive oil is still a fat and every gram contains 4 calories.
Omega 3 Oils:
The next essential oil is the Omega 3 oils, which are divided into three groups. Two of those groups EPA and DHA, come from oily fish, such as salmon, mackerel, herring bluefish and sardines – the latter being the richest source. Once again, we can look to a “peasant culture” for positive proof of their efficacy. Early in the last century, it was noted that the Inuit folk of northern Canada and Greenland were totally without heart disease, despite their diet consisting largely of whale meat and seal blubber – with hardly any vegetables. As the rates of heart disease in the “developed” countries has risen alarmingly in recent decades the figures for the Inuit have remained static. However, it is interesting to note, this does not hold true for Inuit that move to other countries and follow a more refined diet.
Other countries, such as Japan feature large amounts of fish (along with soya) in their diet and show considerable health benefits from this form of protein. Again, if the Japanese move abroad, or adopt a more “Western” diet, their obesity goes up and their general health declines.
Another culture that features seafood prominently is those healthy Italians.
Other Omega 3 fats, called LNA come from vegetable sources:
1. Flaxseed oil
2. Oils from nuts, such as walnuts, almonds, hazel nuts, macadamias and pecans – these last three are also high in omega 9 (monounsaturated) oil.
So why are these fats, Omega 3, 6 and 9, so central to your good health?
The Omega 3 oils, as we have seen with the Inuit studies, have the ability to thin the blood, rendering it less “sticky”, so less likely to form like threatening clots in the arteries. It also lowers bad LDL cholesterol, discourages arterial plaque which blocks off arteries, causing heart attacks, lowers blood pressure and helps prevents strokes. Even more heartening is the news that Omega 3 may even be a curative, as well as preventative. American researcher, Dr Bonnie Weiner, fed fish oil to seven pigs into which coronary artery disease had been induced. Eleven other pigs also had the disease, but were not given the Omega 3 oil. It was found that the Omega 3 oils significantly retarded the development of the artery disease in the seven trail pigs. So Omega 3 oils can actually reverse some of the damage done to your arteries by over consumption of “bad” fats in the past.
Polyunsaturated fats have the advantage of reducing cholesterol, but are not as effective as Omega 9 oils in preventing oxidation of cholesterol. Olive Oil, in particular, has been found to lower the levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol in the blood and raise the levels of “good” HDL cholesterol. It is also rich in the important antioxidant vitamin E.
Let’s take a look at what excess of cholesterol (because we do need some cholesterol) can do to you:
1. Clog your arteries, leading to heart attacks. Hence the death figures discussed previously.
2. Clogged arteries impair men’s amatory prowess, by clogging up the hydraulics that make it work! Too much fat also reduces testosterone.
3. If the large arteries that feed your heart and lower regions are clogged up, just imagine what that same cholesterol rich blood is doing to the tiny capillaries that feed blood to the brain! The brain is the most oxygen-hungry organ of the body. It needs a constant supply of fresh oxygen rich blood to function properly – 20% of your entire bodily needs, actually. If that supply is cut back, parts of the brain die.
That leads to memory loss confusion, inability to concentrate, fatigue and other problems, usually accepted as one of the hazards of “growing old. But, now you know which fats are good and which are bad, you can keep your arteries – and those tiny capilaries clear - so you don’t have to accept these problems lying down.
