Even with good intentions of buying nutritious foods, once you enter the supermarket, you are surrounded by tempting options that may contain large amounts of fat. Solid fats have high calories and raise your blood cholesterol and your cardiovascular risk. Liquid fats carry high calories, too. All fats can coat your arteries and narrow the space for blood flow. Identify fatty-food traps so that you can avoid them while shopping and keep your pantry free of foods that can harm your health and lead to weight gain.
Snack Foods
The problem with fatty snack foods is their abundance of calories and lack of beneficial nutrition. Large amounts of fat plus less-nutritious carbohydrates -- the bulk in chips and white-flour baked goods -- leave little room for healthy fiber, vitamins and minerals. Fried snacks such as corn and potato chips, cheese puffs and pork rinds fit this profile. Baked pretzels, crackers and "snack mixes" do, too. Read the FDA label information and avoid snacks with high ratios of saturated and trans fats especially, and those with high calories from unsaturated fats and refined white flour as well.
Deli Foods
Cold and hot fatty foods fill the supermarket deli. You may consider prepared salads as healthy choices, when in fact, many rely on fat for their taste appeal. Cold dishes to limit in your diet include coleslaw, potato salad, macaroni salad and bean salad. Among processed meats, sausages such as bologna, salami and pepperoni have more artery-clogging saturated fat and cholesterol than lean ham and turkey breast. Any fried hot foods carry excessive calories from oil and unhealthy carbohydrates in breading.
Dairy Foods
When fat content is reduced, dairy products are healthy foods that belong in a nutritious diet for their protein, calcium and other mineral and vitamin content. The American Heart Association recommends avoiding full-fat milk, yogurt, cheese and ice cream desserts. Instead, choose 1-percent or fat-free dairy foods most of the time.
Meat and Seafood Counter
You're most likely to encounter detrimental saturated fat and cholesterol in supermarket meats and seafood. Limit your saturated fat intake by choosing fish more often than meat and poultry. While shellfish has less saturated fat, too, it tends to be high in dietary cholesterol. The worst fatty fresh meats include lamb cuts, pork and beef rib cuts, ground beef, and chicken or turkey with skin. Remember that frying meat or fish in oil at home increases your chances of developing overweight conditions, atherosclerosis or narrowed arteries, and heart disease.
References
- FDA: Choosing Healthful Foods Using the Nutrition Facts on the Food Label; January 2011
- American Heart Association: Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations; May 2010
- American Heart Association: Atherosclerosis; January 2011
- American Heart Association: FAQs About Fats; May 2010
- American Diabetes Association: Making Healthy Food Choices
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