Including Healthy Fats In Your Diet

Fats play a crucial role in many body processes, such as the absorption of vitamins and the production of hormones. You have to eat the right fats in the right amounts to maintain good health. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that your daily fat intake should not exceed 20 to 35 percent of your daily calories. You should restrict your intake of saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol. Eat mainly polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats.

Saturated Fats

Saturated fats are found primarily in animal products such as meat, poultry, eggs, milk and dairy products. Tropical oils like palm and coconut oil are also predominantly saturated fats.

Nutritionist and biochemist Mary Enig, a fellow at the American College of Nutrition who is internationally renowned for her research on nutritional fats and oils,asserts that saturated fats help cell stiffness and integrity, are essential for calcium absorption and strong bones, enhance the immune system, protect the liver from toxins and provide the heart's preferred energy source during stress.

Add coconut oil to your diet. According to Dr. John Briffa of the University College, London School of Medicine and authority on the impact of nutrition on health, coconut oil helps reduce the risk of heart disease by reducing LDL cholesterol and increasing HDL cholesterol, and helps prevent fat accumulation in the body.

Polyunsaturated Fats

Polyunsaturated fats are found in vegetable oils such as sunflower, corn, canola, soybean, safflower, walnut, hemp, pumpkin, flax and oily fish like mackerel, tuna and sardines.
Polyunsaturated fats form what are known as the omega-3 and -6 essential fatty acids and support the health of the brain, eyes, skin, blood pressure and body composition.
Nutritionist Patrick Holford, author of " The Optimum Nutrition Bible" and founder of The Institute for Optimum Nutrition in London, emphasizes you should use the seeds or cold pressed variety of these oils as a condiment. They should not be subject to the heat of cooking, which causes harmful oxidization.

Balance

In his ebook, "The Fat Burning Kitchen," nutritionist Mike Geary suggests that you eat three times as much omega-6 fats as omega-3. He and Holford lament the fact that the typical Western diet contains about 15 times more omega-6 than omega-3. Geary attributes this to increased consumption of refined omega-6 vegetable oils like corn, soybean and sunflower. He claims this excess consumption leads to increased risk of weight gain, heart disease, cancer and autoimmune disease. Hemp seed and pumpkin seed oils come closest to the ideal balance of omega-3 to -6.

Monounsaturates

According to Holford, people in Mediterranean countries whose diet is high in monounsaturated olive oil have a lower incidence of heart disease.
Cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil contains healthy phytochemicals. It provides a healthy alternative to ultra heat treated refined vegetable oils and is ideal for cooking or as a condiment on salads, vegetables or any other food as suits your palate.

Considerations

Unlike polyunsaturated fats, the molecular structure of saturated and monounsaturated fats prevents the release of harmful free radicals when subjected to the high heat of cooking, particularly frying. Mike Geary emphasizes this on his website, Truthaboutabs.com, and lists his top three healthy cooking oils as virgin coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and butter.

According to Holford, fat should form no more than 20 percent of your total daily calorie intake. He suggests a profile of four percent omega-6, three percent omega-3, seven percent monounsaturated fat and six percent saturated fat.

Warning

Minimize or avoid trans fats in your diet. These are hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils as found in margarine, shortening, processed foods, cookies, cakes, deep-fried foods and junk foods. According to Geary, hydrogenated oils are so highly processed, deodorized and bleached that they are more like industrial oils than food oil. They cause massive inflammation in the body which leads to weight gain, poor health and various diseases.