Once upon a time, we didn't know anything about fat except that it made foods tastier. We cooked our food in lard or shortening. We spread butter on our breakfast toast and plopped sour cream on our baked potatoes. Farmers bred their animals to produce milk with high butterfat content and meat "marbled" with fat because that was what most people wanted to eat.
But ever since word got out that diets high in fat are related to heart disease, things have become more complicated. Experts tell us there are several different kinds of fat, some of them worse for us than others. In addition to saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, there are triglycerides, trans fatty acids, and omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids.
What Most Folks Know...
Most people have learned something about cholesterol, and many of us have been to the doctor for a blood test to learn our cholesterol "number." Now, however, it turns out that there's more than one kind of cholesterol, too.
Almost every day there are newspaper reports of new studies or recommendations about what to eat or what not to eat: Lard is bad, olive oil is good, margarine is better for you than butter--then again, maybe it's not.
Amid the welter of confusing terms and conflicting details, consumers are often baffled about how to improve their diets. Clearly, though, consumers are interested in obtaining this information. In a poll conducted by Nielsen Marketing Research, people were asked to select the food qualities that were "very important" to them, and knowing which foods were low in fat and cholesterol ranked highest:
Percentage of people who said these food qualities were "very important" to them:
| Food Quality |
Percentage |
| Low caffeine |
31.2% |
| Low calorie |
38.2% |
| Low sodium |
41.3% |
| Low fat/cholesterol |
58.6% |
FDA regulations enable consumers to see clearly on a food product's label how much and what kind of fat the product contains. Understanding the terms used to discuss fat is crucial if you want to make sure your diet is within recommended guidelines.
Triglycerides and VLDL Triglyceride is another form in which fat is transported through the blood to the body tissues. Most of the body's stored fat is in the form of triglycerides. Another lipoprotein--very low-density lipoprotein, or VLDL--has the job of carrying triglycerides in the blood. NHLBI considers a triglyceride level below 200 mg/dl to be normal.
It is not clear whether high levels of triglycerides alone increase an individual's risk of heart disease. However, they may be an important clue that someone is at risk of heart disease for other reasons. Many people who have elevated triglycerides also have high LDL-cholesterol or low HDL-cholesterol. People with diabetes or kidney disease--two conditions that increase the risk of heart disease--are also prone to high triglycerides.
10 Tips To Reduce Fat In Your Diet
- Steam, boil, broil, or microwave vegetables, or stir-fry them in a small amount of vegetable oil.
- Season vegetables with herbs and spices rather than sauces, butter, or margarine.
- Try lemon juice or fat-free dressing on salad, or use a yogurt based dressing instead of mayonnaise or sour cream dressing.
- To reduce saturated fat, use vegetable oil or tub margarine instead of butter or stick margarine when possible.
- Replace whole milk with skim or low-fat milk in puddings, soups, and baked products. Substitute plain nonfat yogurt, blender-whipped cottage cheese, low-fat sour cream, or buttermilk in recipes that call for sour cream.
- Choose lean cuts of meat, and trim any visible fat from meat before and after cooking. Remove skin from poultry before or after cooking. Monitor portion sizes. (Lean meats end in "loin".)
- Roast, bake, or broil meat, poultry, or fish, so that fat drains away as the food cooks.
- Use a nonstick pan for cooking so added fat will be unnecessary, use a vegetable spray for frying.
- Chill broths from meat or poultry until the fat becomes solid. Spoon off the fat before using the broth.
- Eat a low-fat vegetarian main dish at least once a week.
Food and Drug Administration Publication No. (FDA) 99-2286
Maia Appleby
maia@inch-aweigh.com
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