Know the difference between good and bad fats

This article provides incentive and methods to eat things such as avocadoes, walnuts and herring. If that doesn’t scare you away, read on.

It wasn’t very long ago that the absolute banishment of all fats in the diet was the goal of the healthy person. Fat substitutes such as Simplesse and Olestra, introduced in the 1990s, were supposed to make our food healthy and help reduce weight overall. But not only did that not work out – neither product holds a prominent position in food marketing today – but nutrition research tells us that some dietary fat is vital for physical and mental health.

Part of the problem is the natural tendency to categorize one type of food as “bad” and another as “good.” We simply wrote off a whole macronutrient, fat, without paying attention to the differences within the category. We now recognize that nature isn’t nearly as neat. As it turns out, humans evolved to eat all types of foods they could hunt or gather, and sometimes that meant eating the fat off the antelope, other times it was nuts and avocadoes, all of which contain some fat. Each played a role in enabling us to survive and reproduce (which, as it turns out, includes having pretty skin, hair and a happy outlook).

For example, fats constitute a large part of our brains. Skin, emotional well-being, intellectual function, and energy – all benefit from the intake of appropriate amounts of fats. More importantly, we survive optimally with the intake of the right kinds of fats, particularly in a modern world.

So which fat types are best for you? The real answer is which proportions of fats will serve our best interests. That’s a debatable question, but for anyone living a typical life in the developed, industrialized world, chances are you are taking in too much of one-type of fat – saturated – and probably not enough of the more beneficial ones (unsaturated, both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated). A predominant portion of meals made outside the home – restaurant food, but also processed, packaged foods found in grocery stores – are made with higher amounts of saturated fats, simple carbohydrates (sugars, starches) and sodium.

Saturated vs. unsaturated: how to tell the difference

There is a simple phrase that can help you identify which foods contain the types of fat you need compared to those you probably need to cut back on. It is:

Fats Without Feet

Memorize those three words and what they represent and your can do well at improving your diet and health overall.

Fats without feet are basically fish and plant foods. They include vegetable oils (olive, corn, soy, almond, peanut, canola, sunflower, safflower) in place of lard or beef fat. Regular bacon has saturated fat, but soy-vegetarian bacon is made with plant fats. Fat from nuts, and that anomalous fruit, the avocado, also contribute to better health. Note that all fats contain essentially 9 calories per gram, as compared to 2-4 calories per gram of protein or carbhohydrate. So calorically speaking, it is smart to pay attention to portion size.

Chicken, pigs and cows have feet. You can eat leaner cuts from each of these, but what fat is there is saturated.

Fish from cold water environments – salmon, herring, anchovies, sardines, tuna, black bass, blue fish, carp, among others – are particularly noted for their higher content of Omega 3 fatty acids. These are the nutrients most associated with improved heart health, and the more the better. According to Dr. Fran Hu at the Harvard School of Medicine, as reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a study of 84,688 women aged 34 to 59, eating fish illustrated the following:

• High consumption of fish (five times a week) cut the risk of dying from heart disease by 45 percent compared to women who rarely ate fish

• Eating fish two to four times a week lowered the risk of suffering a heart attack by 31 percent

• Even low fish consumption (one to three times a month) cut the risk of developing heart disease by more than 20 percent.

Really? Eat herring several times a week?

Speaking for myself, I find some fish such as a herring a little challenging. But I happened upon a little serving combination recently and now eat some several times a week. Here’s how I do it:

While preparing dinner – along with my heart-healthy glass of red wine – I place three or four pieces of pickled herring on a salad plate. I sprinkle roasted soy nuts on top, and eat one piece at a time while cooking. The distinct taste and texture are modified somewhat with the crunchiness of the soy nuts (also a fat without feet).

This also curbs the appetite. Because I exercise and even teach spin classes a few nights a week, I arrive home famished and ready to hoover up whatever food is there. I always prepare terrific, healthy meals but even that can contribute to unwanted weight gain if consumed in excess quantities. A little snack before a meal – apples or a green salad work too – helps reduce hunger and therefore overall consumption.

Vegetable fats – NOT hydrogenated

The evidence is clear that while fats derived from vegetable sources are beneficial to health – often, extracted from seeds – but when those fats are hydrogenated the benefits are overshadowed by the introduction of transfatty acids. The food industry has wrestled with this problem for two decades because hydrogenation is a means of preserving those fats from spoilage – hence, the preponderant use of hydrogenated fats in packaged goods and restaurant French fries.

Avocadoes and nuts such as walnuts, peanuts and almonds contain high amounts of monounsaturated fats. This is particularly noteworth because these are foods people generally enjoy. That guacamole dip may be great party food, but consumed in moderation it can go a long way to improving heart, brain and skin health. Avocado fats even enable nutrients from other foods to absorb better – for example, alpha- and beta carotene (from orange foods such as carrots, mangos and sweet potatoes) are processed better and more effectively when you eat avocadoes.

But you can’t carry guacamole dip around with you everywhere. Here’s my recommendation on how to factor a little bit of avocado in almost every day:

Buy commercially packaged avocado in tubs, or the real fruit. Spread a small amount on whole grain bread or crackers. Eat for breakfast, lunch or a side dish at dinner. Note that two Tablespoons constitute a 0ne-ounce portion, which is 50 calories (compared to an equivalent amount of butter, which is 200 calories). In fact, when I brown bag my lunch it goes on the two sandwiches I make and eat with a side of carrots.

It’s a delicious snack or adjunct to a meal – from fats without feet that keep you on the go.

Russ Klettke is a certified fitness trainer (ACE), business writer, speaker and author of "A Guy's Gotta Eat, the regular guy's guide to eating smart" (Marlowe & Co., NY 2004) with Deanna Conte, MS RD LD.