Unsaturated fats, which are liquid at room temperature, are considered beneficial fats because they can improve blood cholesterol levels, ease inflammation, stabilize heart rhythms, and play a number of other beneficial roles. Unsaturated fats are predominantly found in foods from plants, such as vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds. Show There are two types of “good” unsaturated fats: 1. Monounsaturated fats are found in high concentrations in:
2. Polyunsaturated fats are found in high concentrations in
Omega-3 fats are an important type of polyunsaturated fat. The body can’t make these, so they must come from food.
Most people don’t eat enough healthful unsaturated fats. The American Heart Association suggests that 8-10 percent of daily calories should come from polyunsaturated fats, and there is evidence that eating more polyunsaturated fat—up to 15 percent of daily calories—in place of saturated fat can lower heart disease risk. ()
Finding Foods with Healthy Fats is a handy visual guide to help you determine which fats are beneficial, and which are harmful. Saturated FatsAll foods containing fat have a mix of specific types of fats. Even healthy foods like chicken and nuts have small amounts of saturated fat, though much less than the amounts found in beef, cheese, and ice cream. Saturated fat is mainly found in animal foods, but a few plant foods are also high in saturated fats, such as coconut, coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel oil.
In the United States, the biggest sources of saturated fat () in the diet are
Though decades of dietary advice (, 14) suggested saturated fat was harmful, in recent years that idea has begun to evolve. Several studies suggest that eating diets high in saturated fat do not raise the risk of heart disease, with one report analyzing the findings of 21 studies that followed 350,000 people for up to 23 years.
The overarching message is that cutting back on saturated fat can be good for health if people replace saturated fat with good fats, especially, polyunsaturated fats. (, , ) Eating good fats in place of saturated fat lowers the “bad” LDL cholesterol, and it improves the ratio of total cholesterol to “good” HDL cholesterol, lowering the risk of heart disease. Eating good fats in place of saturated fat can also help prevent insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. () So while saturated fat may not be as harmful as once thought, evidence clearly shows that unsaturated fat remains the healthiest type of fat. Percentage of Specific Types of Fat in Common Oils and Fats*Oils Saturated Monounsaturated Polyunsaturated Trans Canola7 58 29 0 Safflower9 12 74 0 Sunflower10 20 66 0 Corn13 24 60 0 Olive13 72 8 0 Soybean16 44 37 0 Peanut17 49 32 0 Palm50 37 10 0 Coconut87 6 2 0 Cooking FatsShortening22 29 29 18 Lard39 44 11 1 Butter60 26 5 5 Margarine/Spreads70% Soybean Oil, Stick18 2 29 23 67% Corn & Soybean Oil Spread, Tub16 27 44 11 48% Soybean Oil Spread, Tub17 24 49 8 60% Sunflower, Soybean, and Canola Oil Spread, Tub18 22 54 5 *Values expressed as percent of total fat; data are from analyses at Harvard School of Public Health Lipid Laboratory and U.S.D.A. publications.
Trans FatsTrans fatty acids, more commonly called trans fats, are made by heating liquid vegetable oils in the presence of hydrogen gas and a catalyst, a process called hydrogenation.
Partially hydrogenated oil is not the only source of trans fats in our diets. Trans fats are also naturally found in beef fat and dairy fat in small amounts. Trans fats are the worst type of fat for the heart, blood vessels, and rest of the body because they:
The long road to phasing-out artificial trans fatsFor years, only true diet detectives knew whether a particular food contained trans fat. This phantom fat was found in thousands of foods, but only those familiar with the “code words” partially hydrogenated oil and vegetable shortening knew when it was present. Fortunately, after a large body of research in the 1990s sounded the alarm on its deleterious health effects, a series of policy initiatives led to the near elimination of artificial trans fat in the U.S. food supply by 2018. However, the road to eliminating trans fat was not so straightforward, and outside the U.S. there’s still more work to be done. In many developing nations, trans fat intake remains high. Read more about the key research and policy initiatives shining the spotlight on harmful trans fats.References
8. Mensink, R.P., et al., Effects of dietary fatty acids and carbohydrates on the ratio of serum total to HDL cholesterol and on serum lipids and apolipoproteins: a meta-analysis of 60 controlled trials. Am J Clin Nutr, 2003. 77(5): p. 1146-55. 9. Appel, L.J., et al., Effects of protein, monounsaturated fat, and carbohydrate intake on blood pressure and serum lipids: results of the OmniHeart randomized trial. JAMA, 2005. 294(19): p. 2455-64. 10. U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S.D.o.H.a.H.S., Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010, 2010. 11. Lichtenstein, A.H., et al., Diet and lifestyle recommendations revision 2006: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association Nutrition Committee. Circulation, 2006. 114(1): p. 82-96. 12. Institute, N.C., Risk Factor Monitoring and Methods: Table 1. Top Food Sources of Saturated Fat among U.S. Population, 2005–2006. NHANES. 13. Siri-Tarino, P.W., et al., Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease. Am J Clin Nutr, 2010. 91(3): p. 535-46. 14. Micha, R. and D. Mozaffarian, Saturated fat and cardiometabolic risk factors, coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes: a fresh look at the evidence. Lipids, 2010. 45(10): p. 893-905. 15. Astrup, A., et al., The role of reducing intakes of saturated fat in the prevention of cardiovascular disease: where does the evidence stand in 2010? Am J Clin Nutr, 2011. 93(4): p. 684-8. 16. Riserus, U., W.C. Willett, and F.B. Hu, Dietary fats and prevention of type 2 diabetes. Prog Lipid Res, 2009. 48(1): p. 44-51. 18. Mozaffarian, D., et al., Dietary intake of trans fatty acids and systemic inflammation in women. Am J Clin Nutr, 2004. 79(4): p. 606-12. 22. Farvid MS, Ding M, Pan A, Sun Q, Chiuve SE, Steffen LM, Willett WC, Hu FB. Dietary Linoleic Acid and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies. Circulation, 2014. Terms of UseThe contents of this website are for educational purposes and are not intended to offer personal medical advice. You should seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The Nutrition Source does not recommend or endorse any products. What are the most abundant of the lipids compounds?Lipids are structurally and functionally diverse. The most abundant lipids are triacylglycerols (TAGs), which are used by plants as for dense energy storage.
Is cholesterol the most abundant lipids?Phospholipids are the most abundant in the cell membrane. They form the bi-layered membrane structure. In addition to phospholipids, the plasma membrane contains some amount of cholesterol and glycolipids.
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