subject: 12 Things You Need to Know About Dietary Fat [print this page] 12 Things You Need to Know About Dietary Fat
1. If you're not eating enough fat, your body is making it anyways. Your body manufactures saturated fat, a fatty acid called "palmitic acid", when your diet is low in fat and high in carbohydrates. Saturated fat will be stored on your stomach and thighs and is directly linked to heart disease.
2. Eating fat substitutes creates a craving for real fat. If you're eating a lot of fat free foods, you're much more likely to crave highly fattening foods the next day. This is not the case when you're consistently eating healthy fats.
3. Essential Fatty Acids, or EFAs, are fats that cannot be produced by the body. These fatty acids are either omega-6 or omega-3. The American diet is loaded with omega-6 (vegetable oil, seeds, nuts) and sparse in omega-3 (fish, flaxseed, canola oil, green vegetables).
4. Increasing your omega-3 consumption can raise your HDL (good) cholesterol, lower LDL (bad) cholesterol, and lower your blood pressure and risk of blood clots.
5. Omega-3 fatty acids delay the appearance of tumors in animals, slow down their growth, and reduce the risk of metastasis.
6. Oils high in omega-6 fatty acids, in contrast, speed the growth of malignant tumors and make them more aggressive.
7. Decreasing omega-6 consumption while increasing omega-3 consumption has been shown to lower the risk or lessen the severity of inflammatory and auto-immune diseases, including: Alzheimer's disease, asthma, menstrual pain, and arthritis.
8. Your brain is made up of a high percentage of fat, and is especially rich in the omega-3 fatty acid DHA. These "structural" fats form cell membranes and play a vital role in brain functioning.
9. Don't be afraid to eat "fatty" fish. These fish rarely have more fat than lean beef cuts, and are loaded with omega-3s. Tuna, salmon, herring, and mackerel are solid choices.
10. Pop 2 fish oil pills with one meal during the day. This will greatly increase your omega-3 consumption.
11. Use canola oil or olive oil as your primary oil. Canola oil has a high amount of omega-3s, and olive oil is low in omega-6s and contains squalene, which lowers cholesterol.
12. As far as nuts go, butternuts, walnuts and chestnuts have the highest amounts of omega-3 acids. Choose these if you like to snack on nuts.
Source: Artemis Simopoulos, M.D., The Omega Diet (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
