FAT!!!

By Amanda Horn

There is a lot to know about dietary fat. What types of fat are there and where do they come from? Which types should you eat and which types should you not eat? What do the different types help with and how exactly is your health affected by them? Fat is a huge part of our diet and knowing exactly what types of fat are good for our bodies and what types we should only eat in moderation can help us to enjoy our food more, stay healthy and not die of a heart attack at age 50.

For quite some time many people have simply assumed that all fat is bad for your health. While that stereotype has started to disappear it still isn’t gone and many people don’t know anything more than that some fat is good for them. In fact the reason I decided to make dietary fat the topic of my blog was because I have wanted to know what types of fat are good and which ones aren’t for a long time. I’ve just never gotten around to looking it up. What I discovered was very interesting and it is information that I will certainly start to pay attention to going into the future (Why).

The stigma that fats are completely bad for us with no good qualities at all arose in the late 1970’s and into the 1980’s. It was then that people started to realize that diet had an impact on their health and that things such as a lot of fat and bad foods would lead to heart disease and stroke.  So then as often happens when you notice something is wrong, you start trying to fix the problem before you really understand what is going on. The American idea in doing this was to completely rid our diets of fat. We blamed all the health problems on all types of fat and didn’t even stop to consider that our problems might be more difficult to fix than that. Everything started to be made in fat-free forms but the sugar and salt in those items rose so that they would still taste good. By doing this nothing was fixed, in fact, things just seemed to get worse. Our country experienced more heart disease, more obesity, more high blood pressure and more general health problems. After that they did more research as they always do and found that fat is not the only contributor to our rising rate of heart disease and other diet related illnesses. In fact a huge part of the problem is caused by sugar and salt and other things we need in moderation but often eat way to much of. They also discovered that some types of fat do actually play a large roll in our poor health and some don’t. You simply need to know which is which and how to avoid the types that aren’t good for you (Why and Lowenstein).

There are three main types of fat, Unsaturated, Saturated and Trans. Unsaturated fats are typically the ones that are considered good for you. They are helpful in many ways and you actually do need a certain amount of them to survive. There are two types of unsaturated fat. The first is monounsaturated fat and it is good for helping to lower cholesterol and other things such as reduce blood pressure. It is found in plant products such as nuts and avocados. The other type is polyunsaturated fat which is found in things like fish. It is very good for you and you should have a decent amount of it in your diet. It is good for your finger nails and hair and once again helps to lower cholesterol. This type of fat can also be split into two types Omega-3 fatty acids and Omega-6 fatty acids. In our culture Omega-6 is much more highly consumed and should be brought down but both are good for our bodies. In fact I even noticed a very obvious difference in my nails when I started to take Omega-3 supplements. My nails became stronger and shinier and I don’t have to deal with hang-nails as much as I used to. Also my hair started shedding less and I started to feel better in general. These fatty acids are very good for you but the fact that they have gotten a bad rap (Lowenstein).

This however does not mean that all fats are good for you. In fact Trans fat is very bad for you and for good reason. It is linked to higher cholesterol and many other problems that we normally just associate with fats in general. This type of fat is found in many processed foods as it helps to keep them preserved and makes things taste better. It is recommended that you try to get rid of this type of fat completely as there is absolutely nothing good for you about it or at least that is what the research right now shows. Saturated fat is an interesting fat because while it had a really bad rap for a while it is starting to shed that and show how it truly can be helpful. There doesn’t really seem to be anything that they can find against it but as of right now there isn’t really anything for it. While some types seem to definitely be good for you there really isn’t anything definitive about whether or not you should eat it. So keeping it down to a minimum is probably the best idea for now. The main thing is that you should not try to cut fat completely out of your diet because just like almost everything else you need some of it for daily functions. Fats help your brain to develop which is why it is an essential part of a baby’s diet but it also helps you do things like dissolve fat soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K. These fats that we often try to avoid, especially when wanting to lose weight or be healthy are actually essential to our diets and really need to be eaten (Lowenstein).

 

A food that is very fatty but looks delicious (Thibeault’s Table)

This is where the idea of eating the right types of fat starts to play a role in some of the things we have talked about in class. If you eat the types of food that contain the good types of fats and avoid the processed ones that contain Trans fats you will be on your way to eating in a “slow food” fashion. You need to be taking time to enjoy the fats you are eating because they taste good and then eating them in moderation because, as  Carlo Petrini says, “Pleasure of this sort implies moderation and awareness and is an integral aspect of health.” The slow food movement must be considered when thinking about eating what is good and good for you. It shows you that what is good for you doesn’t always need to taste like bad vegetables and water. You can eat what you love and still have it be something your body needs to be healthy (Paxson).

Fatty foods also often look very good, you take what you see and translate it to the rich flavors of the fats you know by intuition to be in those foods. Your taste buds see what they want and fat tastes good as Jana Raadik Cottrell has said many times, “You can never have too much butter.” We love fatty foods, fish is delicious and so are many other things and as long as you eat the correct types you can still be healthy and even lose weight. While fat has many calories it is much more filling than other foods and will leave you feeling satisfied and you won’t need anything more.

Fat is an interesting food group, it seems like it is bad for us and like eating fat would cause fat build ups, but that is not always the case. Fat is actually an essential part of our diets and is necessary for a healthy lifestyle. What great news right!! It is always interesting to study nutrition because while it is almost impossible to get exactly the right nutrients you need, knowing that fats are good for your health makes it a lot more fun.

Work Sited:

Lowenstein, Kate. “Fats You Canand ShouldEat.” Health.com. Health Media Ventures, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. <http://www.health.com/health/condition-article/0,,20582466,00.html>.

Raadik Cottrell, Jana. “In Class Lecture.” Interview. 20 Apr. 2016.

Paxson, Heather. “Slow Food in a Fat Society: Satisfying Ethical Appetites.” Gastronomica 5.1 (2005): 14-18. (c)2005 University of California Press. 27 Apr. 2016. <http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/64493>.

“Thibeault’s Table: Halibut Fish Cakes.” Thibeault’s Table: Halibut Fish Cakes. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. <http://www.thibeaultstable.com/2013/03/halibut-fish-cakes.html>.

“Why We Got Fatter During The Fat-Free Food Boom.” NPR. NPR, 28 Mar. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. <http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/03/28/295332576/why-we-got-fatter-during-the-fat-free-food-boom>.