Saturated fats and unsaturated fats: the differences!
Fats have had terrible notoriety for a considerable length of time. Fats would be unhealthy thickeners, which you better avoid. Fortunately, people are increasingly coming back from this. Certainly, not all fats are bad and unhealthy. Fat provides vitamins A, D, E and essential fatty acids. Also, the cells in our body need fat as fuel. There are, however, different types of fats that are not all equally healthy. Which fats can you eat with confidence? And which fats are less healthy?
In this report, you can read more about the difference between saturated fats and unsaturated fats.
Unsaturated fats: "healthy fats."
Unsaturated fats are also called "healthy fats" or "good fats". There are mono and polyunsaturated fats that differ slightly in terms of chemical structure (double bonds in the so-called cis configuration). Important and well-known (poly) unsaturated fats are the essential fatty acids Omega 3 and Omega 6. Unsaturated fats maintain normal blood cholesterol levels and healthy cholesterol is good for the heart. Unsaturated fats also belong in a healthy diet. Products that are rich in unsaturated fats include fatty fish, nut vegetable oils and products that are made with this, such as margarine and low-fat margarine. So enjoy a piece of fresh salmon regularly or snack a handful of nuts, sprinkle some oil on your salad and spread your sandwich regularly.
Trans fats
Trans fats are also unsaturated fats. However, they do not have the same positive health effects as the other unsaturated fats. On the contrary, trans fats are unhealthy. This is because the double bond (s) are not in the cis but trans configuration. This molecular structure contributes to raising the "bad" cholesterol and lowering the "good" cholesterol in your blood, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.
So you prefer to avoid trans fat, but where do products contain trans fats? Trans fats occur naturally in some products, such as beef and milk. Oils and fats are sometimes processed to improve the structure. This processing process sometimes also produces trans fats. This mainly concerns fats that are hard at room temperatures, such as hard baking butter and roasting fats. You will also often find some trans fat in, for example, cakes, cookies and chips.
Saturated fats: "unhealthy fats."
Saturated fats are also called "unhealthy fats" or "bad fats". Saturated fat raises the "bad" cholesterol level in the blood, which is terrible for the blood vessels. Because eating with fat always contains some saturated fat, it is difficult to avoid it altogether. However, it is better to use as little of it as possible and to replace products with a lot of saturated fat as much as possible with products with low saturated fat.
Products that contain a relatively high amount of saturated fats are often animal products, such as sausage, full-fat cheese, fatty meat and whole milk products. Chips, snacks, cookies and cakes, for example, also (unfortunately) often contain a lot of saturated fat (depending on the ingredients used). Occasionally a cookie can of course not hurt, but try to eat this kind of delicacy in moderation. Do you want to know more, and are you curious about what confused the health effects of saturated fat?
How many grams of fat per day?
Trans fats are unhealthy, and you better avoid them. The advice is to keep the amount of saturated fat in your diet as low as possible. For an average adult woman, this amounts to a maximum of 22 grams and for an ordinary man, a maximum of 28 grams of saturated fat per day.
It has not been determined how much total unsaturated fat you need per day. At a healthy weight, it is recommended to consume twenty to forty energy percent from fats. With a maximum of ten percent from saturated fat, ten to thirty percent of energy remains from unsaturated fat. In general, the proportion of polyunsaturated fats in your diet can best be between three and twelve percent, with a lower limit of one percent alpha-linolenic acid (Omega 3) and two percent linoleic acid (Omega 6).
Fewer saturated fats, more unsaturated fats!
Fats are not unhealthy fat makers that you have to stay far away from but belong in a healthy diet. It is good to be aware that not all fats are equally healthy. Therefore try to replace saturated fats in your diet as much as possible with unsaturated fats. Small changes in your diet can already have a lot of impacts. For example, replace whole butter on bread with low-fat margarine or margarine.
