Who Needs Fat? You Do!

What's so good about good fat?

Fats are an integral part of your cell membrane and are necessary for your body to work properly. The right kinds of fat are essential to good health and can even protect you from stroke, high blood pressure and certain diseases like diabetes, cancer, depression and kidney disease.

Fat calls produce a hormone that suppresses inflammation, a key contributor to diabetes and heart disease. This same hormone also helps lower protein in the urine, an indicator of both kidney and cardiovascular diseases.

Fats also help the body absorb certain nutrients and antioxidants.

Good fats

Good fats come from oily fishes such as salmon, mackerel, tuna and herring. Other sources of good fats are egg yolks, avocados, nuts, seeds, olives, and certain oils such as olive and canola.

What's so bad about bad fat?

The body doesn't know what to do with bad fats. Because it can't recognize and process them, it stores them in your cell membranes, pushing the good fats out. Bad cell membrane function is an underlying cause of insulin resistance and diabetes.

Bad fats

Sources of bad fats include refined oils, partially hydrogenated oils, shortening, and commercially deep-fried foods.

Smart choices

Make your diet more heart healthy by following these tips:

• Limit your intake of processed foods. Check snack labels in particular, and skip products with hydrogenated oils.
• Use butter instead of margarine because your body understands how to process it. Better yet, opt for olive or canola oils which are healthier fats.
• Cook lean by steaming, broiling, grilling or baking foods, not frying. 
• Eat fish (not fried) several times a week.
• Punch up the health value of your salads with olive oil vinaigrettes and a scattering of nuts or sesame seeds.  
• The healthiest oils are unrefined. That means they haven't been heated during commercial processing. These oils will spoil more quickly and aren't good for heated-cooking, but they are better for you. Use unrefined oils for salads, bread dips or post-cooking flavoring on veggies and baked potatoes.

Fat is an essential part of the human diet. Pay attention to the kinds of fat you are consuming, but remember, just because you are eating good fats doesn't mean you can overdue it. Limit your total fat intake to about 30 percent of your diet.