What is "Healthy Fat"?
Throughout the years, fat hasn’t had the best reputation. Certain food fats including saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, and cholesterol, have been associated with health conditions like cardiovascular disease and obesity. Before sufficient research could be done, the finger was pointed at fat and the “low fat/fat-free craze” took off.
Fats are organic molecules made up of carbon and hydrogen elements joined together in long groups called hydrocarbons. There are three main types of dietary fat: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats.
Saturated fats contain no double bonds. Each carbon has two hydrogens. The chain is “saturated” with hydrogens. Because of this chemical configuration, saturated fats are generally solid at room temperature, like butter or coconut oil.
Unsaturated fats have one or more double bonds between the carbons. Thus not all of the carbons have hydrogens stuck to them. This puts a “kink” in the chain. Monounsaturated fats have one double bond and polyunsaturated fats have more than one.
We need fat. Dietary fat provides us with energy, helps make and balance hormones, provides satiety, forms our cell membranes and our brain and nervous systems, and helps transport the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.
So what is “healthy fat”? Most often “healthy fat” refers to monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. A better description would be fats from whole foods that are minimally processed, like olive oil, nuts, and avocados.
Unhealthy fats are typically those that are industrially produced and designed to be nonperishable, such as:
trans- fatty acids that appear in processed foods
hydrogenated fats such as margarine (hydrogen is added to the fat chain to make a normally liquid and perishable fat into a solid and shelf-stable fat)
most shelf-stable cooking oils (e.g. safflower, soybean, corn oil, etc.)
KEEP THE BIG PICTURE IN MIND
As humans we thrive best on a mix of fat types that occur naturally in different types of foods. We can achieve this balance by consuming a diverse selection of whole, less processed foods such as:
Nuts and seeds (hemp, chia, and flax seeds are nutritiously rich!)
Eggs
Avocados
Fish
Pasture raised/grass fed meat
Olives and extra-virgin olive oil
In addition to consuming a variety of whole foods, try to minimize or eliminate refined and processed foods containing industrially produced fats and artificially hydrogenated fats.