How to Eat for Health: Fats and Oils

How to Eat for Health: Fats and Oils
Fats are an extremely important part of a healthy diet, and
the essential fatty acids are named essential for a reason.
They aid in just about every bodily function as they play
a crucial role in cell wall function. Working as a
transporter, they pass oxygen and nutrients through the
cell wall and help to keep invaders and other foreign
bodies out of the cell. Other functions performed include
brain cell function, immune system, nervous system and
hormone function.

So what is hydrogenation and what are the results of
ingesting partially hydrogenated fats into your body?
Well, hydrogenation is simply the process of heating an oil
to the point where hydrogen bubbles enter, becomes attached
to the fatty acids and form a solid in fully hydrogenated
and more of a thick cream, or butter texture when partially
hydrogenated. Hydrogenated oil has a high level of trans
fats and these trans fats act within a cell in a confused
manor and will keep nutrients out and let the foreign
bodies in. Not only do these trans fats lead to obesity,
but also are linked to disease such as diabetes and
coronary disease (the leading killer in America).

Trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils can be found in
a number of foods, and are used because they are a less
expensive alternative to other cooking substitutes such as
butter. Baked goods, potato chips, cookies, crackers, are
just a few of the food categories that contain partially
hydrogenated oils, the worst of which is partially
hydrogenated soybean oil. This soybean oil is noted to
negatively affect the thyroid function resulting in feeling
sluggish, a decrease in energy and reluctance to want to
exercise.

How much trans fat is bad? When you find out something can
lead to heart disease and obesity, I wouldn’t take
any chances and I would avoid any of it at all costs. Some
reports have shown that .5g of trans fat is equal to
approximately 1.5g of unsaturated fat in terms of how it
affects your health. You won’t see this in the label
of many products as .5 g can still be labeled as 0% trans
fat due to federal law. But when you scroll down the
ingredients, you might come across partially hydrogenated
oil present in the first few lines.

The best way to avoid trans fat is to read your labels
thoroughly. Avoid grocery shopping in the middle aisles
for food and stay on the outskirts of the store where the
fresh produce, dairy and meat are located. When cooking,
choose to cook with virgin coconut oil, although high in
saturated fat, and low on many health food lists, it is
unaffected by heat, and it is metabolized differently than
other oils as it will be burned as fuel and not stored into
the fat cells. Fats are extremely important to our diet,
but you can make healthy choices about fats by reading
labels and learning about the different types of fats and
how they affect the body.

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