If you are one of those who still think to eat Fats It is harmful to your health, or you feel confusion in the type of fat you should consume, stay to read this article and you will see how you clarify the ideas.
Before starting, we will remember the FUncions that have fats In the organism:
- The Structural function It allows good maintenance of cell membranes, also necessary to maintain good levels of vitamin D.
- The Liposoluble vitamin transport function (A, D, E, K).
- The recognized palatability function, in this way the food in the palate is more pleasant.
- The Energy function It allows to incorporate 9 kcal per gram, which adapted to your requirements is important to meet all macronutrients.
Every day we listen to terms such as trans fats, saturated fats, toxic fats, monounsaturated fats and surely generates a lot of controversy. The reality is that fats are necessary to live, and to enjoy good health. Each type of fat is accompanied by a "last name", such as saturated fat, monounsaturated fat.
These are terms that refer to their biochemical structure of these compounds, and depending on the size of each structure, it can take different nomenclatures such as short chain, long ...
That said, we will classify them in a general way:
Saturated fats
They have been very marked throughout history, by several scientific studies where they were directly associated with cardiovascular diseases. Foods where we can find this type of fat: coconut oil, cow meat and pork, chicken meat, fish, egg yolk.
The problem comes when we ingest this type of saturated fats in ultraprocessed such as industrial pastries, composed of palm oil, refined butter ... Therefore, we must assess the origin of our intake of saturated fats, and know what they are necessary for a proper functioning of the brain, a strengthened immune system or to facilitate the fixation of calcium in the bones ...
Unsaturated fats
Classified in:
- Monounsaturated, are found in olive oil, avocado, almonds, nuts, sesame oil, sunflower oil ...
- PolyunsaturatedS are found in foods such as sesame oil, sunflower oil, soybeans. It is recommended not to use in fried frying, since this type of fat when reaching high temperatures is oxidized and is not beneficial for our health.
Trans fats
BThey have been Created by the Food Industry. This type of fat has been the result of the Hydrogenization of vegetable fats, which allows manufacturing food products that last more over time.
It is easy to recognize in the supermarket products that carry it: cakes, prefabricated masses with unpleasant ingredients, microwave popcs (packages ready to heat), pizza masses with added trans fats.
Obviously, you have to know how to read and interpret nutritional labels, since we cannot affirm that all brands use this type of fat, so we recommend you read the labels and choose the most appropriate option within the offer.
As data, in Spain it is not mandatory to include in the labels the grams of trans fats of each product. Therefore, reading the list of ingredients we can get an approximate idea of whether the product has a lot or not of this type of fat.
The best way to know that we are not consuming a lot of trans fats is to buy food and not products. When your purchase basket is mostly composed of fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, legumes, good quality dairy, you should not worry about taking a product of this caliber in a timely manner.
How many fats must be consumed?
Once this information is collected, you must adapt the intake of fats to your personal situation. In general, it is recommended that fats occupy a 20-30% of your diet, taking care that this percentage comes from natural fats.
In general, an adult can easily get this percentage, which is summarized in 60-80 grams per day. To get an idea, a tablespoon of 15 grams olive oil contains 15 grams of fat, or two ounces of high chocolate in cocoa of about 16 grams, they would give us 8 grams of fat.
Tips for a healthy life
And finally, the best tips you can follow for your daily life are:
- Eat varied, prioritizing food and not products.
- Avoid friedness, very recurring roasts and all that cooking method where fats reach high temperatures.
- Prioritize extra virgin olive oil, although you alternate with other types of vegetable oils.
- Coconut oil recommends buying it cold, to better obtain its benefits.
- Combine fat sources With the rest of macronutrients, we will keep ourselves satiated. Fat slows absorption, so we will suffer less anxiety peaks and maintain the most stable glucose levels.
- Move daily, perform physical activity. It is a fundamental point, since the human body is designed to be moving. Although your day to day forces you to remain sitting for hours, try to walk as much as possible, perform combined physical activity (strength, hiit, cardio ...).
