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Your Total Guide To eating and drinking
Lots of people are aware that there are “good fats” and “bad fats”- but apart from knowing that a drizzle of olive oil on your salad is good for you and that extra cheese and salami on your pizza probaly isn't, people don't know which fats to avoid.
Its also very important to know that you shouldn’t ever have a diet with no fat in it - fat plays very important functions within the body, such as helping to insulate the body from the cold, needed for absorption of fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, and is used within the body to create essential hormones.
Fats are found in both animal and plant sources, for example:
Animal Origin: Butter, Lard, Meat, Dairy Products, Fish, Eggs
Plant Origin: Seeds, Nuts, Olives, Avocado, Coconut, soya.
Generally speaking (although coconut is an odd exception to this rule), fats from animal origin are made up of “saturated fats” - which are essentially the “bad fats” that you will want to be avoiding, or reducing how much you consume of, as these are the fats that have a bad effect on your cholesterol levels.
Fats from plant sources are usually made from “monounsaturated fats”- which have been proven to have a positive effect on cholesterol levels and your overall circulation and heart health.
Oily fish provides a good source polyunsaturated fats, many of you may know as “omega 3” and “omega 6” which you often see advertised on food packaging. It is theorised that it the high consumption of oily fish, and the high levels of olive oil consumption, that accounts for the healthiness of the Mediterranean population. This is most likely why the NHS recommends that the British public should be consuming at least one portion of oily fish a week.
Here are some tips on keeping your saturated fat levels low, and your “healthy fat” levels high!
And here are some healthy meal suggestions to help you to keep your healthy fat consumption high!
Breakfasts
Lunches
Dinners
Snacks
To keep your healthy fats high, snack on nuts and seeds whenever you can!
So don’t be scared to improve your diet, and improve your heart health, by not shying away from fats- now that you know the good, from the bad, from the ugly!
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