Nutrition: All About Fat the Good, Bad and why?

This week oils our nutrition week:

FATS!  Why? How? The Good and the BAD.  

Our Mantra this week is:

“I am committed to keeping my body healthy”

One of our main goals for AOYS is to learn about creating a nutritionally sound foundation and learning about all the components that takes.

Why do we need fat in our diet?

Healthy fats provide energy, support cell growth, protect organs, and keep your body warm. Essential fatty acids are necessary for the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K and help with hormone production. If you eliminate fat altogether, meals and snacks will lack satiety, flavor, and texture.

Let’s Break them down

The worst type of dietary fat is the kind known as trans fat.

Trans fats have no known health benefits and that there is no safe level of consumption. Therefore, they have been officially banned in the United States.

Saturated fats are common in the American diet.

They are solid at room temperature — think cooled bacon grease, but what is saturated fat? Common sources of saturated fat include red meat, whole milk and other whole-milk dairy foods, cheese, coconut oil, and many commercially prepared baked goods and other foods.

Is saturated fat bad for you? A diet rich in saturated fats can drive up total cholesterol, and tip the balance toward more harmful LDL cholesterol, which prompts blockages to form in arteries in the heart and elsewhere in the body. For that reason, most nutrition experts recommend limiting saturated fat to under 10% of calories a day.

Good fats come mainly from vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fish. 

They differ from saturated fats by having fewer hydrogen atoms bonded to their carbon chains. Healthy fats are liquid at room temperature, not solid. There are two broad categories of beneficial fats: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

Monounsaturated fats.

When you dip your bread in olive oil at an Italian restaurant, you’re getting mostly monounsaturated fat.

Good sources of monounsaturated fats are olive oil, peanut oil, canola oil, avocados, and most nuts, as well as high-oleic safflower and sunflower oils.

Polyunsaturated fats.

When you pour liquid cooking oil into a pan, there’s a good chance you’re using polyunsaturated fat. Corn oil, sunflower oil, and safflower oil are common examples. Polyunsaturated fats are essential fats. That means they’re required for normal body functions but your body can’t make them. So, you must get them from food. Polyunsaturated fats are used to build cell membranes and the covering of nerves. They are needed for blood clotting, muscle movement, and inflammation.

There are two main types of polyunsaturated fats

omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids. The numbers refer to the distance between the beginning of the car