Saturated Fats Are The Bad Guys
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What are Saturated Fats?
Come on! They're the bad guys that harm your heart - they raise your total cholesterol as well as LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) in your blood which in turn increase your risk of heart disease and stroke?
Ah.....the bad, bad guys, like in the movies, huh?
Seriously, saturated fats have a chemical makeup in which the carbon atoms are saturated with hydrogen atoms and they're solid at room temperature.
You don't feel good knowing this, right?
If you want to know, many foods.......
Let me narrow them a bit.
Most animal meats and fats and animal sources are the foods.
Like chicken, beef, lamb, mutton, pork that are laced with layers and layers of fats; plus eggs, seafood, processed meats like salami, sausage, bacon, luncheon meats.
Not to lose out in the pack are Whole dairy products - lard, cream, butter, cheese, cheese sauces
And some plant foods, such as palm oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil. But one thing about them, they don't contain cholesterol.
The 2 groups I mentioned earlier contain dietary cholesterol, meaning they're high in cholesterol which raise your blood cholesterol even higher.
These bad guys also hide themselves in many baked goods and fried foods, e.g. biscuits, cakes, pastries, fried noodles, fried rice, crisps, chips, corn chips, cheese snacks, crackers, chocolates.......
They also "crouch" in most foods in restaurants, grocery stores, vending machines and fast food joints.
They also come together with trans fat , the infamous bad fats brothers!
Enough to raise your alarm?
Well, the American Heart Association recommends you limit this fat's intake to less than 7% of your total calories in a day.
This means, if you eat about 2,000 calories a day, not more than 140 of them should come from this fat.
That’s like 16 grams a day.
Quite enough for you (and me) already, don't you think?
The more you eat them, the better chance they'll clog your arteries and break your heart......
That's putting it simply, for you to understand.
So replace foods high in these kinds of fats with foods high in monounsaturated fat and/or polyunsaturated fats.
This means eating foods made with liquid vegetable oil but not tropical oils. It also means eating fish and nuts.
You also might want to replace some of the meat you eat with beans or legumes.
Don't eliminate all fats from your diet to improve your health.
Stick to the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated types as much as possible and only eat them in moderation.
You'll be fine.
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