Since the early 1990s, there has been an obsession with lowering the amount of fat in our diets. If you are trying to comply with the United State Department of Agriculture, or USDA, guidelines for reducing your daily fat intake to less than 30 percent of calories, you should increase your intake of foods that are low in fat. In fact, if you add in enough foods which that have virtually no fat, you can enjoy some richer choices and still keep your total below 30 percent. Here is a list of foods that are 98 percent or more fat-free, by weight.
Low-fat Dairy
While whole milk dairy products are, by definition, not low in fat, there are reduced-fat or nonfat versions of almost all of them. Milk, yogurt, cheese and cottage cheese all come in varieties that have had much or all of the fat removed.
Lean Meats, Poultry and Fish
Some animals are extremely lean by nature, such as wild game like bison, buffalo, elk, moose and deer. All of these have less than 2 percent fat by weight in their uncooked state. Many, but not all, types of fish also meet the 98 percent fat-free criterion, when in their raw state. Among those that do not, trout, whitefish, yellowtail, catfish, and salmon are among the highest, each with 5 percent or more fat content by weight. Domesticated animals are not naturally low in fat but can be made so simply by choosing the leanest cuts or removing the visible fat from beef and poultry.
Fruits and Vegetables
Almost all foods classified as fruits or vegetables are 98 percent fat-free in their fresh, frozen or canned form, if nothing else has been added. Two exceptions are avocados and olives, both of which contain 10-to-15% fat by weight. In addition to the fruits and vegetables themselves, you will also find fruit or vegetable juices, jams, jellies and dried or dehydrated versions to be 98 percent fat-free or better.
Starches
Another group of naturally low-fat foods are those that are made up largely of starch. This includes all grains, like wheat, corn and rice, and many foods made from them, like cereals, breads and pasta. It would also include all legumes and tubers, which have the added benefit of being high in dietary fiber.
Sugars
Although sugars, both natural and processed, create their own set of dietary woes, they are definitely not high in fat. In fact, sweeteners of all kinds, and especially high fructose corn syrup, are often used in food processing as a substitute for fat, to give a low-fat product better flavor and texture than it would ordinarily have. This is a clever marketing ploy, but an unwise dietary trade-off. Foods in this category would have the following ingredients: sugar, honey, molasses, corn syrup, maple syrup, malt syrup or sorghum. Some examples of pure sweetener type foods are hard candies, cotton candy, sweetened sodas or teas, marshmallows, or fruit-flavored toppings.
Processed Foods
Finally, a group of foods that are not naturally low in fat, but have been engineered to be that way, is the processed low-fat food group. This includes such products as low-fat canned soups, low-calorie frozen entrees, low-fat puddings, gelatins and fat-free frozen treats. All of these products are highly processed, manufactured foods which use some combination of starches, sugars, gums, or other thickeners to replace the fat that their traditional counterparts would contain.
Summary
As you can see from these groupings, there are hundreds of foods to choose from every day that will not add substantially to your daily fat intake. In particular, low-fat dairy and meat products, fruits and vegetables and starchy foods add plenty of bulk and nourishment to the diet without adding fat. Sugary foods and highly processed foods might also be low in fat, and even add taste and texture, but they are not nearly as generous in adding nutritive value.
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