What are the healthy fats : avoid the bad fats and keep yourself as healthy as possible. If you’re following the keto diet you’ll already know about the importance of fat. However, not all fats are good for you. Some are healthy but others are bad to the point of being toxic.
When some fats are actually toxic, its vital to know which fats are healthy and which fats to avoid.
This is especially important when following the keto diet as it requires that you take 70% of your daily food allowance in the form of fat.
When you’re trying to eat that much fat, you need to make sure that you’re eating only healthy fats. Avoiding bad fats will make all the difference to your health.
Even if you’re not on keto, but eating low carb, you’ll still benefit by knowing the difference between healthy fats and those fats you should avoid altogether.
What are the healthy fats?
Just as there are good carbohydrates to eat and bad carbs to avoid, there are both good and bad fats.
The good fats are the fats that are natural and nutritious. They are not man made, and are fantastically good for you.
These healthy fats are:
- Olive Oil
- Lard
- Butter
- Ghee
- Cheese
- Full Fat Cream
All of these fats are natural, and are the type of fats that your grandparents would have used every day.
Unfortunately, the consumption of fat has been thought of as bad in recent years.
However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Your body needs some fat from food.
Fat is one of the important sources of energy. It also enables the uptake of many vitamins and minerals.
Furthermore, fat is used by your body to build the vital exterior membrane of your cells. Fat is also used to help with blood clotting and healthy inflammation.
Note: *not to be confused with very unhealthy chronic inflammation
Good fats include both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.
Which foods contain healthy fats?
Fortunately, its super easy to find foods that contain all the healthy fats that we need for good health.
These fatty foods should form the basis of your daily dietary intake:
- Avocados.
- Cheese.
- Butter
- Ghee
- Cream
- Whole Egg
- Fatty Fish
- Nuts.
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
- Tallow
- Coconut oil
- MCT Oil
Try to include two or three of these items in your diet every day. Add butter or olive oil to your meat or low carb vegetables; stir together cream and cheese for a healthy low carb cheese sauce.
Fatty fish is also a great provider of omega 3 fatty acids. You should consider eating a fatty fish at least twice each day. Some examples of fatty fish are:
- Salmon
- Tuna
- Halibut
- Cod
- Sardines
- Trout
- Mackerel
What about saturated fat? Isn’t that bad for your health?
There has been a lot of scientific attention paid towards saturated fats, especially the link between saturated fat and heart disease.
This study concluded that:
A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of Coronary heart disease or Cardio vascular disease.
Furthermore, there is now overwhelming evidence that when it became popular to swap the traditional saturated fats out of food, the overall health of the population suffered.
For full information about why saturated fats are not bad for you read here
Which fats are bad for your health?
There is one group of fats that are so bad for your health that you should try to completely avoid them:
Trans fats.
“Trans fats” is the short version of trans fatty acids. You won’t see that listed on any food item though because it will appear on food labels as:
Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
Without a doubt, this is a short label that is worth remembering: consider never eating anything that contains the words Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
This type of fat can often be found in foods such as:
- Baked goods, such as cakes, cookies and pies.
- Ready meals
- Sauces
- Shortening
- Frozen pizza.
- Refrigerated dough, such as biscuits and rolls.
- Fried foods, especially fried foods from take out restaurants. Including french fries, doughnuts and fried chicken.
- Nondairy coffee creamer.
- Margarine.
Remember that these dangerous trans fats are made from seed oils. These include:
- Canola Oil – rapeseed
- Crisco – cottonseed
- Soy Oil
- Peanut Oil
- Corn Oil
These Seed oils need to go through a massive amount of processing in order to become edible. This industrial process includes refining, bleaching, deodorizing and coloring.
These seeds oils are used for frying, but at temperatures of 180 c/ 256 f they release toxic compounds which are implicated in the development of cancer.
Worse, with each re heating, the concentration of these chemicals is increased.
This makes buying and eating ready food which has been fried so dangerous. The chances are that the oil that the restaurant is using has been re heated many times.
The only safe level of seed oils to consume is zero. Try to make sure that these type of fats are never in your food.
In summary: What Are The Healthy Fats : Avoid bad fats
The consumption of fats has gained a poor reputation in recent years. However, not all fats are created equal.
While some fats are definitely very bad for your health, other fats are a vital part of your healthy diet.
Naturally growing or animal based fats are the type of fats that were traditionally used. These are the sort of fats you should be including in your diet.
There is no doubt that these healthy fats are necessary for your body, and for maintaining good health.
Indeed, its not possible to uptake important vitamins and minerals without these healthy fats.
On the other hand, trans fats (seed oils) are so bad for you that they should be avoided altogether. Look out for the words Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
If you see a product which contains these words, leave it on the shelf. Avoid margarine too for the same reason. The alternative, butter, is both natural and healthy.
By following these guide lines, you should be able to reach your dietary fat needs and keep healthy at the same time.
This is true also for those of you who are following the high fat keto diet.
Remember, not all fats are equal: use the healthy ones and avoid the bad. You’ll soon be feeling all the health benefits of including enough healthy fats in your diet.
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