Why Are Trans Fats and Saturated Fats Bad For You?

In this article, you are going to learn about the bad fats. It is important when selecting fats to include in your diet that you always choose good unsaturated fats over trans or saturated fats.

What Are Saturated Fats?

Saturated fat is one of primary fat categories that you can find in the food that you eat. Saturated fat is different from unsaturated fat because there are not any double bonds between its chemical makeup and carbon atoms. Therefore, hydrogen saturates the fatty acids.

Saturated fat that occurs naturally is found in foods that are products from animals. When an animal-based food cools after it is cooked, the saturated fat congeals.

On the other hand, unsaturated fat that occurs naturally, such as olive oil, remains in fluid form even when it cools. Saturated fat is more stable when cooking and far less likely to spoil than unsaturated fat.

It is critical that you limit the amount of saturated fat in your diet. These bad fats have been shown to be related to cardiovascular disease. If your regular diet is high in saturated fats, you are at an increased risk for stroke, high cholesterol, coronary heart disease and atherosclerosis.

While good fats raise high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, bad fats raise low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels.

Therefore, too many bad fats in your diet can lead to an undesirable cholesterol profile.

Even though fat is necessary to maintain a healthy well balanced diet. Many nutritionists are in agreement that you should keep as many of your fat sources as possible on the unsaturated side.

Although found primarily in animal-based foods such as dairy foods and meat products, some saturated fats can also be found in a few plant sources. For example, palm kernel oil, coconut oil and cottonseed oil all contain a considerable amount of saturated fats.

You daily caloric intake should not consist of more than seven percent saturated fat. In order to manage cholesterol levels, try to replace the saturated fats in your diet with unsaturated fats.

What Are Trans Fats?

Trans fats can be found in a number of different commercially packaged foods, commercially fried foods from fast food chains, margarine and vegetable shortening.

Any commercially packaged foods that have partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, shortening or hydrogenated vegetable oils are likely to be full of trans fat.

In the past, foods were prepared with butter, palm oil, lard and the like, which are packed with saturated fat. So, manufacturers began using the healthier vegetable oil alternative.

Liquid vegetables are not stable when heated and are likely to go rancid rather quickly. Hydrogenated liquid oils are able to stand up better in during production and storage. Trans fatty acids are the result of the scientists’ hydrogenation.

Just like is bad fats cousin saturated fats, trans fats decrease HDL cholesterol level and increase LDL cholesterol levels. This can lead to an increased risk of developing heart disease. In addition, some studies have found that eating a diet that is high in trans fat may lead to an increased risk for the development of Type 2 diabetes.

However, not all trans fats are bad fats, Conjugated linoleic acid, which occurs naturally and provides a great number of benefits. This type of trans fat can be found in full-fat dairy foods, beef and lamb.