The Essential Macro-Nutrient – Fat (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!)

The Essential Macro-Nutrient – Fat

It is very important to know what Fats are, why are they important in our diet, and what kind of fats should be avoided? Whether you are trying to lose weight, or gain weight, or build muscles, or just keep your body healthy; it is extremely important to know how to include this essential macronutrient in your diet. Fats are very important macronutrient for our body functioning, if eaten in a right way. This article will help you understand all about the essential macronutrient fat – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

We all or most of us love eating something crunchy, fried, gooey, cheesy, buttery, sweet, creamy, spicy and fried, or salty and oily. These are all fatty food options that taste really good, satisfy our taste buds, make us feel guilty some times, and increase the bad fat in our blood stream. I think there is nothing wrong in eating them once in a while, if your blood lipid levels are under control and your doctor is okay with you for eating them in some proportion. But there are many healthy fat options that we can introduce in our diet that will help our body stay healthy and well functioning. If you go on strict fat free diet without consulting your doctor or dietician, you may end up harming your body.

What are Macronutrients?

Macronutrients are the nutrients that our body needs in larger amount. Basically, in simpler terms macronutrients provides us with energy. They are essential for our body to function properly. Energy that we gain from these macronutrients is measured in terms of calories or kilocalories. There are three essential macronutrients – fats, carbohydrates, and proteins.

Who needs to watch fats in their diet?

Everyone irrespective of weight, age, and gender needs to watch the amount and type of fat intake in their diet. It is extremely important to get the routine body check up done under doctor’s guidance and know whether our blood lipid / cholesterol levels are within normal range or not and how to keep them under control.

Is fat bad for us?

The answer to this question is No! Not all Fats are bad for us. Fat is an essential macronutrient that helps our body in various ways.

• It helps hormone systems run smoothly. Eating healthy and appropriate amount of fat helps keep our body’s hormone release smoother. Some studies show relation between hormones like estrogen and insulin levels and amount and quality of fat intake.
• Fat also pads the internal organs and cushions them. It also helps with cell membrane integrity.
• Fat is very essential for absorption of soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K. For example, if you are eating plain raw carrots, but to make your body absorb vitamins of those carrots you need to include some good source of fat in the same meal or any meal of the same day. This healthy fat eaten on the same day as we eat carrots, will help our body absorb the vitamins from carrots.
• Including fat in our diet satiates us and provides our body with energy that can be saved.

How much fat should be included in our daily diet?

According to USDA, Fat should account for 20 – 35 % of daily calories. That is minimum of 400 – 700 calories per day depending on our age, gender, and body type. 1 tablespoon of fat gives us around 120 calories. That means we need to include about 3.5 tablespoons per day that would provide us about 420 calories.

Are the No fat or Low-fat Diets healthy?

Again, the answer is No! As we discussed earlier in this article, healthy (good) fats are extremely necessary and beneficial for our body.

• Consuming fewer than 20 percent of daily calories from fat can prevent our body from absorbing essential vitamins, can cause hormonal imbalance, decrease our satisfaction, and cause many other problems.
• When we decrease fat from our diet, we try and replace them with other things to satisfy our hunger. Anything in access is harmful for our body. Reduced fat is often replaced with carbohydrates from sugar, refined grain, or other starches which leads to weight gain and diseases.

All we can do is include appropriate amount of healthy / good fat in our diet and avoid bad and inappropriate (more than necessary or lower than necessary) amount of fat in our diet.

What kind of fats do we find in our blood stream?

We find three types of fat in our blood stream – LDL, HDL, and Triglycerides.

LDL (Bad Cholesterol) – Low Density Lipoprotein

According to CDC.gov, LDL also known as bad cholesterol stores cholesterol in the blood stream. It makes up most of our body’s cholesterol. When your body has lot of LDL cholesterol, it forms the build up on the walls of the blood vessels. This build up is also called plaque. This increases the risk of angina (chest pain) and heart attack / stroke.

HDL (Good Cholesterol) – High Density Lipoprotein

According to CDC.gov, HDL also known as good cholesterol absorbs cholesterol and takes it back to liver. The liver then flushes it out of our body. It helps us control LDL in our body. High level of HDL can lower the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Triglycerides

Triglycerides are the most common type of fat found in our body. They store excess amount of energy from our diet. High triglyceride level along with high LDL (bad) cholesterol and low HDL (good) cholesterol leads to plaque build up within the arterial walls. This narrows the walls of arteries and increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.

To remain healthy and fit, one needs to regulate the appropriate amount of LDL, HDL, and Triglycerides in our body. It is very important to do the blood work under the doctor’s guidelines and take care of our body cholesterol and triglyceride levels with good and healthy food and workout.

How can we increase HDL Cholesterol?

• Aerobic exercise or cardio work out at least 30 minutes a day can boost HDL levels by 5 – 10 %.
• Losing weight, if necessary, can help maintain cholesterol levels.
• Quitting bad habits like smoking and alcohol can help boost HDL by 15 – 20%.
• Eating healthy, no trans-fat, and avoiding refined carbohydrates can help regulate cholesterol levels.
• Also do not forget to consult your doctor for right guidance.

What are the different types of fat that we consume?

Three different types of fat that we consume are Saturated fat, Unsaturated fat, and Trans-fat. Not all of these are healthy or good for us. 

Saturated Fat

• Saturated fat in general is solid at room temperature.
• It is mainly found in animal foods, but also in some plant foods. Consuming saturated fat raises HDL and LDL cholesterol in our body.
• Our body produces all the saturated fat it needs and thus does not need to consume it from outside source. This is the reason we should either avoid or limit the consumption of saturated fat as little as possible. According to American Heart Association, consumption of saturated fat should be less than 7% of fat calories.
• Cutting the consumption of saturated fat will have no benefit if people replace it with refined carbohydrates. Eating refined carbohydrates in place of saturated fat will lower LDL, but it also lowers HDL (good) cholesterol and increase triglycerides. Which is again very harmful for our body. So do not replace saturated fat with refined carbohydrates.
• Examples of food that has high amount of saturated fat are –
  • fatty beef,
  • lamb,
  • pork,
  • poultry with skin,
  • lard,
  • cream,
  • butter,
  • full fat cheese, and dairy.

It is recommended that you decrease saturated fat intake and lean towards more healthy fats, known as unsaturated fats.

Unsaturated Fat

• Unsaturated fat is usually found in liquid form at room temperature.
• They are considered as good / healthy fat and improve blood cholesterol levels.
• They help relieve / ease inflammation in our body.
• They also help stabilize heart rhythm. Unsaturated fats can decrease your risk for heart disease.
• These healthy fats originate from plant sources such as
  • avocados,
  • nuts and nut butters,
  • seeds,
  • olives,
  • and oils (olive, canola, safflower etc.).
• They can also be found in animal sources such as –
  • fatty fish including salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna, and herring.

There are two types of Unsaturated Fats – Monounsaturated fats and Polyunsaturated fats. Both are good for consumption.

• Monosaturated fats can be found in –
  • Olive oil,
  • Peanut oil,
  • canola oils,
  • avocado,
  • nuts like almonds, pecans,
  • pumpkin, sesame seeds etc.
• Poly unsaturated fats are omega 3 fats can be found in –
  • Sunflower oil,
  • Corn oil,
  • Soybean oil,
  • flaxseed oils,
  • They are also present in walnuts, flax seeds, fish, etc.

There is evidence that eating more polyunsaturated fat up to 15 percent of daily fat calories in place of saturated fat can lower heart disease risk. Studies suggest that when polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats were eaten in place of carbohydrates, they decrease LDL (bad) cholesterol and increase HDL (good) cholesterol. Studies also suggest that replacing carbohydrate rich diet with the one with unsaturated fat, predominantly monounsaturated fats can lower blood pressure, improve lipid levels, and reduce risk of cardiovascular disease.

Trans fat

• Trans fat should be completely cut from the diet.
• Trans fat are usually solid at room temperature.
• Trans fat come from hydrogenating or adding hydrogen molecules to unsaturated fats. This produces hydrogenated oil. They are made by heating liquid vegetable oils in presence of hydrogen gas and a catalyst, this process is called hydrogenation.
• Trans fat can naturally be found in beef fat and dairy fat in small amount.
• Trans fat raise bad LDL and lower good HDL.
• These can be found in margarine, shortening, baked goods, doughs, and fried foods. If you read trans-fat on the food label, try and avoid eating that food.
• Trans fat are the worst type of fat for the heart, blood vessels, and the rest of the body. They not only raise bad LDL and lower good HDL, but also create inflammation in our body. This affects the immunity of our body and cause heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, insulin resistance, and other chronic conditions. Even small amounts of trans fat can have adverse effect on our body.
• Not only hydrogenated but also partially hydrogenated Oils are not safe for consumption. USFDA suggests removing partially hydrogenated oils from processed foods to prevent thousands of heart attacks and deaths each year.

How to select what to eat and how to read food labels?

When you go out to buy snack or food that is ready made, make sure to read nutrition labels and ingredients. If you read words like hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated, refined, trans fat, saturated fats, high cholesterol, high calories, high sodium, high fructose corn syrup, and high total fat do not include that food in your diet. 

Besides, it is very important to be mindful about what we eat and how much we eat. Anything in access is harmful for our body. Best option for healthy eating is to plan your each meal ahead. So that when you are hungry, you just don’t pick up whatever is available irrespective of its nutrition value. Try and make meals of your liking on your own so that you can make it with healthy fats.

Healthy fats you can include in your diet are avocado, extra virgin olive oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil, ghee, nuts (if you are not allergic), seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, etc..), fish, etc..

We can say that fat should not be removed completely from diet. They have bad reputation because they are higher in calories and certain types of fats are not good for us. All we need to do is focus on what type of fat we should consume and how much we should consume. It is evident that unsaturated fats are good for us whereas saturated fat are bad and Trans-fat should be completely removed from our diet. Adding right amount of healthy (good) fat to our diet along with right exercises and healthy lifestyles can help improve our health.

P.S.

• Facts mentioned in above article are from USDA website, USFDA website, CDC website, American heart association article, and The University of Arizona EFNEP Program.
• It is always wise and advisable to make important decisions and changes with the help of the doctor.

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