For a lot of people dietary fat is still something to avoid when possible, even if you’re not thinking about it intentionally.
You might be choosing egg whites over whole eggs, cooking spray over butter, or skim milk over whole…
Is it for our health?
Or maybe for our waistline?
Or because that’s what our friends are doing?
…do we even know why we’re scared of eating fat?
I’ve written about some of the misconceptions about ‘healthy’ fats & cholesterol concerns before. For the last ~70 years or so, we’ve been scared straight from eating saturated fats & cholesterol, as it was the driver of heart disease, right? Nope, not really. You can read that article here.
In this post I want to talk more about why fats are important for every single process of our body & what really constitutes a healthy fat.
High quality fats have many important roles in our diet & body. Here are just a few:
Our steroid hormones (including our sex hormones like testosterone, estrogen & progesterone) are built on cholesterol.
Our cells have fatty outer membranes, and the integrity of the membrane (allowing toxins out & nutrients in) relies on quality fats in the diet.
Different fatty acids are anti-inflammatory, aid in the healing process & help the body repair damaged tissue.
They transport nutrients into our body, like vitamins A, D, E & K which are all fat-soluble vitamins.
Dietary fats & proper absorption are also an important factor in mental health; low fat diets are associated with depression, anxiety, irritability & anger.
Eating fats support detoxification, since it stimulates bile release from the gallbladder, which is a primary detoxification pathway for our body.
In our diet they help balance our blood sugar by minimizing the glucose spike after a carb-filled meal & they keep us satisfied for longer as a result.
They TASTE GOOD! Do I need further justification? :)
There is still some fear of dietary fats in our culture, because they’re high in calories and for a while dietary fats were blamed for heart disease and weight gain. There is some health-ism and fat-phobia to unpack there, but I’m going to save that for another day. The short of it is, fats are essential and do not promote weight gain as you might think. Low-fat diets are not health promoting, and the research is pretty clear on that.
So if not low-fat, then what kind of fat should we be eating?
My rule of thumb: the least processed the better.
Fats that you can imagine are easily extracted or produced from fatty foods are typically the least processed. Things like: butter or ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, among others! These types of fats are easily extracted from their sources & the molecular structure of the fats makes them more resilient to the processing.
More common in our diets are fats that require a lot of processing to extract, from foods like: corn, soy beans, canola (rapeseeds), cotton seeds. Fats from nuts & seeds are particularly delicate and susceptible to damage with heat, light & oxygen. Unfortunately, the refining & extraction process for those oils includes extreme heat and damages & rancidifies the oils before they even make it into the bottle (if you’re curious about the extraction process check out this video). It’s also a good idea to check the ‘best by’ date on oils, particularly if you’re slow to use them and they’ve been in the back of the cupboard for a while. Rancid oils do more harm than good in your body, creating oxidative damage & requiring additional clean-up.
So choosing the right fats is important, AND getting the right amount. In addition to cooking with fats, like butter, coconut oil, or high quality olive oil, try to include a ‘plated fat’ as well. I’m borrowing this concept from Whole30, but the idea is that you add a fat (drizzle of EVOO, avocado, dressing, sauce, cheese, cream, aioli, etc.) to the meal in addition to however your food was cooked. If you’re eating a meal with a higher fat cut of meat, eggs, or some other dish that has plenty of fat in it, it’s not always necessary, but it is something to keep in mind to ensure you’re getting enough fat with each meal.
These fatty foods & quality fats can also be a wonderful source of micronutrients. Some of our most nutrient dense foods are higher fat foods, things like: eggs, grass fed dairy, pastured animals & organ meats. Missing out on these foods because of their high fat content is a two-fold loss, since you’re missing the health benefits of the nutrients, as well as the healthy fats!
Fats are such a misunderstood macronutrient, but I hope you’re understanding and appreciating them a bit more now.
What do you think, are you getting enough healthy fats in your diet?