The Guide to Good Fats (Road to Healthy part 13)

Hello :)

Today I'm writing again about one of my favourite subjects, which is fat. I've written a bit about the basics of fats previously, but I've been reading more and finding out more, so I thought it'd be about time to do a bit of an update. In this post I'll concentrate on the "good fats" so to speak, I'll also go over some interesting facts about how to use and store fats/oils, so they'd be as benefitial as possible.

The three main types of fats, as I've written before, are saturated fats (SAFAs), which are solid at room temperature, they are the fats that we traditionally call fats, for example in dairy and red meat, Mono-Unsaturated Fats (MUFAs), which are liquid in room temperature, for example olive, peanut and rapeseed oils and Poly-Unsaturated Fats (PUFAs), which are also liquid in room temperature, for example soy, corn, flaxseed and sunflower oil.

When it comes to fats it's important to pay attention to how different fats affect the levels of inflammation in the body. As with anything it's important to have a healthy ratio and maintain balance. I've written slightly more about it in the Are we in flames? post, which I will link HERE.

Today I'm going to talk a bit more about the most important PUFAs, which are also called essential PUFAs. The two main groups of these essential oils are Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids. The reason, why they're so important, is simply because our body is uncapable of making them, yet they are vital for the functioning of all cells in our body. So clearly we need to get them from our diet, since the way people eat has changed so much, then it so happens that most people aren't getting enough of them and therefore putting themselves at risk of many different diseases.

Our body uses Omega 6 to create gamma linoleic acid (GLA), but due to the large consumption of saturated fats, there is a bottleneck and there ends up being not enough GLA. Similar thing happens, when Omega 3 is consumed, it is used to create EPA and DHA, there is also a bottleneck, that's one of the reasons people consume these compounds in the form of supplements.

EPA and DHA can both be taken directly from oily fish or fish oil. The problem here is that a lot of people don't like oily fish or don't know how to choose out the most benefitial fish oil, I didn't know either until I read more about it. The regular shop shelves are overcrowded with fish oils to choose from so it can be quite confusing. Here are some useful tips that i've found:

• there should be high levels of EPA and DHA, 500mg a day total, less than that isn't going to be enough to give full benefit of consuming the supplement.
• it should obviously be certified free of heavy mental and organic contaminants.
• it should also have a clear 'sell by' date, to make sure, that the oil has not gone rancid.
• it shouldn't contain vitamins A and D
• it should provide Omega 3 in the form of free fatty acids or triglycerides
• fish oil should be preferrably consumed in capsules rather than just in its oil form, since that prevents the oil from going rancid and losing its benefits.
• it is also recommended to take Omega 3 with vitamins E, C, mixed carotenoids and flavonoids.

Another important thing to remember is to store oils in the fridge, since then you can minimise the possibility of harmful compounds being created in the oil after the bottle has been opened. It is also recommended to store them in dark glass bottles, that especially goes for PUFAs.

When cooking oils it's important to bare in mind that oils should not be reused  and they also should not be overheated. If it's smoking, then it's clearly too hot. It's also not recommended to use iron cookware with fats or oils, since it might release free iron into the food that's being consumed and since it's a free radical, then it can be damaging to the health.

To stop different harmful compunds from being created in the oil, grapeseed oil or green tea extract can be added into the oil. I definitely found that interesting, different herbs and spices can also be added while cooking with oils and fats since they have been shown to have benefits.

Anyway this post, as usual got rather long, so I'm going to end it here, but since fats are such a fascinating subject, then you'll most likely see me writing more about them in the future.

Kaiela :)

Also, I used this amazing book called "Health Defence" by Dr Paul Clayton to get most of this information from and I really recommend it, it's just very interesting and full of useful information, once I'm done with it, there will be a review on it for sure.