According to the United States Department of Agriculture Dietary Reference Intakes, obtaining between 20 and 35 percent of your daily calories from fat is optimal. Although knowing the percentage of fat in a particular food can help you make good dietary choices, recognize that it is the type of fat in a food that really counts for heart health. Of the three types of fat---saturated, unsaturated and trans--you should focus on getting most of your fat calories from unsaturated sources.
Step 1
Read the nutrition label to find the total calories in a given food. Alternatively, for foods without a nutrition label, weigh your food and look up the nutrition information on a nutrition website. For example, a ¼ cup of salted cashews contains 160 calories.
Step 2
Determine the number of total fat grams in a food as per the nutrition label. That same ¼ cup of cashews contains 13 g of total fat, according to the nutrition labeling.
Step 3
Multiply the fat grams by nine---the number of calories in one gram of fat---to determine the number of fat calories that food contains. For a ¼ cup of cashews, we would multiply 13 by 9 to equal 117 total fat calories.
Step 4
Divide the number of fat calories (from Step 3) by the total calories (from Step 1) to determine the total percentage of fat contained in a given food. To figure this for the ¼ cup of cashews, divide 117 fat calories by 160 total calories to get .73, or 73 percent.
Tips and Warnings
- Even if a food is close to 100 percent fat, if it is of the heart-healthy monounsaturated variety, it is still a healthy food. Remember, however, that fat contains more calories than any other nutrient and can contribute to weight gain if eaten to excess. Read the entire nutrition label; it should breakdown the types of fat in the food--this further helps you understand whether your choice contains healthy unsaturated fats or more of the less desirable trans and saturated fats.
- Food manufacturers can still list 0 trans fats if one serving of their product contains less than a half gram of trans fat. However, if you eat two or more servings of such a product--you are consuming one or more grams of trans fats. Look for "partially hydrogenated" oils in the ingredient list to be sure your food is completely clear of this man-made fat.
Things You'll Need
- Food nutrition label
- Calculator
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