Back in the ’80s, war was declared on dietary fat. Leading nutritional experts and the government recommended eating a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet to achieve optimum health. They claimed that fat was the reason for the sudden increase in obese individuals. Well, it’s been more than twenty years now. How have we been doing in this war? I would say “Not good.”

Obesity rates continue to climb and have hit “epedemic” proportions. Incidence of type II diabetes has skyrocketed and is now affecting our children.

No, I think it’s clear, cutting the fat out of our diet did nothing to curb the problem. Of course, I’m simplifying things here and obviously not all of society’s weight problems can be blamed on the decision to remove fat from food, but here’s what happened…

First understand, when you take the fat out of food, it tastes like CRAP! So to make sure their food still tasted good, the food companies replaced the fat with…

SUGAR! And loads of it.

So people bought fat free food, thinking if it’s fat free they could eat all they wanted to. WRONG! Fat free DOES NOT mean calorie free!

If you eat more calories than your body requires, regardless of what type of calories they are…healthy or unhealthy…low-fat or high-fat…low-carb or high-carb…you will gain body fat.

The purpose of this article is to help you gain an understanding of the different types of fat. By no means is it an exhaustive guide on the subject. For that, I highly recommend reading Fats That Heal-Fats That Kill by Udo Erasmus (creator of Udo’s Oil). In my opinion, this book represents the definitive guide on the subject.

With that said, let’s begin by taking a look at…

The Many Faces of Fat

Fat can be broken down into four different categories:

1. Saturated
2. Monounsaturated
3. Polyunsaturated
4. “Trans”

Saturated fats

When a fat contains fatty acids without any double bonds between the carbon atoms, it’s considered a saturated fat. These fats originate mainly from animal sources but can also be found in coconut oil, palm oil and various other sources. Many people prefer using sources of saturated fat for cooking as it remains more stable at high temperatures than unsaturated fat sources such as olive oil or vegetable oil.

Once proclaimed to be a killer fat, saturated fats are making a comeback. In perhaps the largest weight loss study ever conducted, it was found that the more saturated fat, cholesterol and calories a person ate, the LOWER their serum cholesterol levels and the less they weighed.

So what caused all the terrible things once attributed to saturated fat? You’ll have to keep reading to find out.

Monounsaturated Fats

Found mainly in nuts, olives, olive oil, and some seeds, monounsaturated fats are called so because of the single double-bond in its fatty acid chain of molecules.

Polyunsaturated Fats

Polyunsatured fats - also known as “omega fats” - contain more than one double bond within the molecule and can be found mainly vegetable and fish oils and are the one area where people can most easily improve your health.

Polyunsaturated fats break down into two groups: Omega-3 and Omega-6.

Omega 3 and 6 fats are both essential fats - meaning our body needs them to survive; however, because our body does not produce either of them on its own, our supply of these fats must come from the food we eat.

The North American reliance on vegetable oil insures a steady supply of Omega-6 fat, so symptoms of poor health due to a lack of Omega-6 fats rarely occur. Other sources of Omega-6 fats include safflower oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil and sesame oil.

It’s obvious that we have no problem getting our fair share of Omega-6’s. What costs us the most from a health standpoint is the decline of our society’s consumption of foods rich in Omega-3 fats. A diet lacking the proper amount of Omega-3 fat results in a whole host of health challenges:

• Stunted growth
• Impaired vision
• Impaired learning
• Loss of motor coordination
• Behavioral changes
• High serum triglycerides
• High blood pressure
• Inflammation
• Water retention
• Dry skin
• Mental deterioration
• Low metabolic rate

Increasing the amount of Omega-3’s in your diet can, in fact, aid in fat loss. Udo Erasmus, author of Fats That Heal - Fats That Kill states…

“Sufficient essential fatty acids help increase energy and suppress appetite, thereby aiding in weight loss. In addition, they have been found to block the genes that produce fat in the body (saturated and trans-fat do not have this same effect) and increase thermo genesis - the burning of fat.”

Some great sources of Omega-3 fat include…

• Salmon
• Trout
• Mackerel
• Sardines
• Cod
• Flax seed oil
• Salmon oil
• Cod liver oil
• Ground flax seed

Trans-Fat: The Hidden Enemy

Q: What do you get when you take a normal, healthy fat and add hydrogen?

A: You get a substance that will last forever; raises your bad cholesterol; lowers your good cholesterol; causes cancer and basically wreaks havoc with your health.

In the fat family, trans-fat is the black sheep - the crazy uncle that no one wants anything to do with but just won’t go away.
There’s been a lot of press lately about its negative effects. But what exactly is it and where do you find it?

How Trans-Fat Is Formed

Trans-fat appeared about 100 years ago. A Proctor-Gamble chemist named E. C. Kayser developed a process to hydrogenate cottonseed oil to make a new type of candle (replacing candles made by animal fat). But with the increase in electricity use, candles became less important. Since the substance being used to make the candles looked like lard, Proctor-Gamble began selling it as a cooking substance that became known as Crisco®.

In its natural state, unsaturated fat is very unstable and goes rancid quickly when exposed to light and/or oxygen. This creates a problem for food manufacturers. They need the fat to bake and cook with. Their solution was to add hydrogen to normal fat, transforming it into a substance able to sit for months on the grocery store shelves.

Another reason for using the hydrogenation process is to create new products. Over a hundred years ago if you wanted to spread anything on your bread, you had few choices - butter being one of them. Then experts decreed that the saturated fat in butter was responsible for a host of health problems. So the food companies set out to create a butter replacement.

What they came up with was margarine made from hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils. In essence, what they created was a bowl of trans-fat. Now we realize that trans-fat is much more damaging to our bodies than saturated fat ever was.

Here’s Where Trans-Fat Lurks

Trans-fat can be found in a variety of processed foods, such as…

• Cookies
• Doughnuts
• Salad dressings
• Margarine
• Frozen waffles
• Vegetable shortening
• Chips
• Meal replacement bars
• Frostings
• Crackers
• Nearly anything fried

How To Spot Trans-fat

In many countries, it is not mandatory that companies list how much trans-fat is in their products. That is beginning to change. But until the laws change, here is how you spot a possible offender:

Look for the words “partially hydrogenated”, “hydrogenated” or “modified”. If any of these words is followed by some type of oil, it’s a good bet trans-fat is present. Your best defense is to eliminate most, if not all, baked, fried and processed foods with fat in them.

Over the years, fat - especially saturated fat - has been wrongly accused of many serious healthy issues. Now, recent research shows fat to be extremely beneficial to our health, even helping with fat loss. The exception to all of this of course is trans-fat.

It’s been proven without a doubt that fat-free foods do not lead to weight loss success. In fact it helps you achieve fat loss with fewer hunger pains, while still being able to enjoy the taste of food.

If you’re new here, please accept my gift to you…a FREE e-Book titled, “How To Achieve Maximum Fitness and Weight Loss Results In Minimum Time”. You can download these free fitness and fat loss tips here. Thanks for visiting! Come again soon…and don’t forget to tell your friends.