Understand Your Fats and Fiber
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SCI/241
December 20, 2012
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Understand Your Fats and Fiber
Before you can understand the difference between good and bad fats, you need to some information about them. There are four major types of fats: monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, saturated fats, and trans-fats.
Monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are known as good fats because they are good for your heart, your cholesterol, and your overall health. These fats are found in olive, soybean, canola, and corn oils, avocados, fatty fish, and soymilk.
Saturated fats and trans-fats are known as bad fats because they increase your risk of disease and elevate cholesterol. These bad fats can be found in high-fat cuts of meat, packaged snack foods, butter, cheese, vegetable shortening, fried foods, and candy bars. Foods containing trans-fats, or trans fatty acids, are harmful because they are known to increase the risk of heart disease, increase total cholesterol levels, and cause your healthy HDL (good) cholesterol levels to drop. They are also responsible for clogging arteries and causing obesity. Saturated fat is a fat that contains only saturated fatty acids, is solid at room temperature, and comes mainly from animal food products. Some examples of saturated fat are butter, lard, meat fat, solid shortening, palm oil, and coconut oil. Saturated fat tends to raise the level of cholesterol in the blood. Unsaturated fat is a fat that is liquid at room temperature and comes from a plant, such as olive, peanut, corn, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, or soybean oil. Unsaturated fat does not to raise the level of LDL ('bad') cholesterol in the blood.
Trans-fatty acids are an unhealthy substance that is made through the chemical process of hydrogenation of oils. Hydrogenation solidifies liquid oils and increases the shelf life and the flavor