Tuesday 12 November 2013

Understanding Saturated & Unsaturated Fats

It’s one of the most common dietary misconceptions that fats are bad and one should completely avoid them for a healthy life. In fact, fats are a powerful source of getting instant energy. They contain a lot of good nutrients that are body needs to function properly. It has been proved by studies that mostly a large number of people are not getting enough good fats from their diet. A jumble of info makes it hard to classify bad and good fats. Below is a glimpse of both good and bad fats in order to make it easy for you to recognize them:

•    Good or Unsaturated Fats:

Good fats are known as essential fatty acids and the name is saying the fact that fats are essential to good health. In contrary to the common belief not all fats are bad and a complete elimination of fats from your diet may lead to severe health complications. Building and maintaining the cell membrane, absorption of nutrients, nerve transmission, maintain the skin elasticity, proper eye functions are some of the major tasks of fats in our body. Maintaining the heart rhythm is also a delicate task of fats.



Human body cannot make good fats itself and it should be gain by food. To maintain your perfect cardiac health, a balance of omega 3 and omega 6 is essential which are consider as the good fats for the body. A balanced amount of these two also assists in mood stability, joint health, skin elasticity and health and maintains insulin level in body. As these two good fats work contrary to each other in the body so increased amount of any one can cause problems in the body. Surveys show that the amount of omega 6 is relatively high in many diets. Olive, peanut and canola oil, nuts, avocados, pumpkin seeds, flax-seeds, flax-seeds oil, corn and a number of fishes are the best source of good fats.

•    Bad or Saturated Fats:

Along with keeping an eye on balancing of good fats in the body, it is also important to get rid of the bad fats from the diet. These bad fats are known as saturated fats or Trans fatty acids which are used in prepared food industry to elongate the shelf life. Hydrogenated vegetable oil is their name on the labels. They are also found in a number of baked and prepared food items. It is important to avoid them as they are dangerous for overall health and lead to various ailments. Animal fats except fish, beef, pork, lamb, whole milk dairy products, processed and fried foods, bakery items and candies are the most common sources of saturated fats.

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