Most of the time when we think about fat, we think about fast food and other foods that are not very good for us. We need to get away from that frame of thinking and focus more on which fats are the best for us. Yesterday, we talked about overall importance of fat in our diet. Let’s look more closely at the different sources: unsaturated, saturated, and trans fats.

Both saturated and unsaturated fats can be healthy for most people, but for people who have trouble controlling their cholesterol, avoiding a lot of saturated fat is important. Saturated fat is found in animal products/meats, butter, whole milk, and cheese. Nuts can also contain saturated fat (but there is usually more unsaturated fat than saturated fat in most nuts). There are also certain oils that are primarily saturated fat -  plant-based oils such as palm oil, palm kernel oil, and coconut oil. Again, we are not saying that you cannot have any of these things or that they might not have positive effects on your health, it's just all about balance.

Unsaturated fats can be found in oils as well. Olive, canola, peanut, safflower, and sunflower oils are all unsaturated fats that can be healthy in our diets. Other sources of unsaturated fats are fish, avocados, and raw nuts.

For trans fat, the reason we want to try to avoid it as much as possible is because they are highly processed fats, often found in foods fast foods and fried foods. It has become more common for manufacturers to take trans fat out of food now because people know how bad it is for them.

Today, go back and look at your food logs and try to determine where your saturated and unsaturated fats are. If it seems that you have more saturated fat than unsaturated fat, find a way today to switch that balance more towards unsaturated fat. Good luck, and I'll see you tomorrow!