What Is Good Fat - What Is Bad Fat
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By :
Daniel Anderson
Submitted
2009-10-21 12:42:40 |
Good Fat, Bad Fat, Crazy Diets - What's The Fuss?
We have been told for the best part of twenty years that fat is bad and that the consumption of fat will make you fat, your heart unhealthy and your weight escalate. This is not entirely true.
Fat itself is neither good nor bad, but there are two sides to the fat story - Good Fats and the more sinister bad ones.
Not All Fats Are Created Equally
While some people have been prematurely prone to lump all types of fat into the same category, it is an unfair assumption to make.
Fear has precipitated the sort of mass hysteria that creates blurred information and poor choices, the end result is that many people seeking to control their weight have avoided fat at the sake of their health ....and weight loss.
Taking fat completely out of one's diet in order to lose weight is a step backwards and can create a myriad of preventable health problems, especially when good fat can assist with weight loss.
Avoiding Reality
What a shame people have taken the stance that all fat is evil and should be avoided like the plague, when the truth is good fats are essential to good health and proper brain function.
The truth is slowly making it's way into mainstream knowledge, but the majority of people still don't realize the huge benefits of consuming adequate good fats.
In fairness, avoiding all fat is impossible, but some people take up the challenge and in reality it just isn't necessary.
Omega 3, Omega 6 And The Essence Of Brain Function
Simply put, " If you don't have them, you can' possibly function properly Essential means you either have it or you don't have optimum health. The body needs omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids to complete many important internal processes including; brain function, body repair and regeneration, as well as skin elasticity.
When you avoid all fat, you miss out on the essential fatty acids your body needs and you put your health in danger, as well as risking poor brain function.
Salmon, oily fish and flaxseed oil contain good quantities of both omega 3's and 6's.
Bad Fats - Reality Check
Bad fats are dangerous and to be fair, should be avoided. Trans and Saturated fats can create health problems including heart disease, weight gain, excess insulin secretion and impaired bodily function.
Knowing what fats you should avoid can help you maintain good health and negate the ill effects of the bad types of fat.
The most popular offenders are animal fats (except fish), which are all saturated. These include the fat from beef, chicken, pork and lamb. These meats are perfectly healthy - when lean, but if the fat isn't trimmed then you may consume a large amount of saturated fat.
Also in the bad fat category are cream, butter and any dairy products containing milk fat. Often people are advised to avoid dairy when dieting, but this is a bit of a misnomer as low fat dairy is completely fine and healthy.
Two non-animal fat products that are commonly used but not commonly known as saturated in fat type are palm oil and coconuts. These two naturally occurring non-animal products contain high levels of saturated fat and are considered not to be healthy. Watch for foods containing palmolein, which is palm oil.
Good Fat
Good fats are contained in natural non-animal products, these fats are excellent for promoting good health and vital performance.
Omega 6 fatty acids are easier to come by than the omega 3 type.
You can find omega 6 fats in such foods as avocado, nuts, olives and seeds.
Good fat can can help your metabolism run efficiently and by consuming adequate amounts, you can actually assist in weight loss. Fat won't make you fat.
The Biggest Lie Of All
How many times have you heard "so called" weight loss experts use
the phrase "If you eat fat you get fat", because it is one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated by the weight loss industry upon the unsuspecting public.
It's just not true.
You can only get fat (outside of a glandular condition) if you consume more calories than you burn. That's it.
If you ate nothing but fat and you burned more calories than you ate, you would still lose weight. Calories in VS Calories out.
Fat will not make you gain weight!
Only excess consumption and overeating can do that
Why Good Fat IS Important
The mediterranean is a beautiful place, they enjoy a relaxed lifestyle, an appreciation of family and a distinct love of food. This love leads them to consuming large quantities of food and fat, yet unlike the hysteria we hear back home, the fat they eat seems to not make them 300 pounds or unhealthy or even affected adversely at all.
Why?
The truth of the matter is, they consume large quantities of unsaturated good fats which lower cholesterol, increase metabolism and promote good health. This means that any bad fats that they may eat are well and truly counteracted by the quantities of good fats in their diets.
The western world has another problem that fat has been the scapegoat for - Processed Food!
Processed food is junk, garbage and trash food. It can usually be identified by the myriad of ingredients in the wrapper. This unhealthy cocktail of high glycemic carbohydrates and man made trans fats is a sure fire example of why when you tamper with natural food and process the life out of it, you in fact create a monster.
Processed Food Is A Monster
There is no escaping the junk. Everywhere you look in western society there are foods that beggar belief. In a chocolate caramel bar, you might expect cocoa butter and cocoa mass, some sugar and milk and maybe a preservative to stop it going bad. But what you find is ten times this amount of ingredients, many of which are complete unknowns to the average consumer.
What is happening here?
The mediterraneans eat natural, delicious foods packed with vitamins and fiber. These foods invariably contain good fats and as such people in the mediterranean are amongst the healthiest in the world as opposed to the junk food capital of the world - U.S.A, where for the first time in history, the life expectancy of individuals is actually coming down - Yes, our lifestyle is killing us.
Where did we go wrong?
Good fat has been replaced by bad fat, good carbs have been replaced by bad sugars and nutrients have been destroyed in the over processing of our very lifeblood - FOOD!
Fat helps us to think, repair and protect our bodies, but replace it with bad fat and you have poor heart health and lack of good decision making.
Good fat increases health.
Good fat helps burn body fat.
If we wake up in time we may reverse a deadly trend.
What can we do?
Luckily there is a move afoot to ban trans fats and it's happening everywhere. The decision to eat them may well be out of our hands. What we can proactively do is eat more good fats such as nuts, seeds and seafoods. We can cut out the processed junk from our diet or at the least scale it back.
Everyone has a choice, everyone can better their health, whether they will or not is yet to be seen.
Let's hope the longevity of our generation can be saved.
In Conclusion
The solution to understanding fats lies in knowing that most fat is good and the only danger is excess consumption of a few animal fats, but that doesn't mean we have to give up fat forever, on the contrary - We should make sure to include plenty of plant based fats on a regular basis in our diet.
In general it seems that:
1. Animal fat = bad
2. Plant based fat = good ( with the exception of coconut and palm oil)
Hopefully, people will stop discriminating against all fat in a bid to avoid the bad kind.
The right fats to eat aren't hard to find and they taste even better than the bad fats. A diet rich in olive oil, flaxseeds, nuts, avocados and plenty of salmon. This will give you all the omega 3 fatty acids that your body needs to have a healthy heart and maintain proper brain function.
Good Fat - Bad Fat By Daniel Anderson
Tom Venuto's book Feed The Body - Burn The Fat, is still the single most influential and sensible way to lose body fat using the very best diet and exercises. To get this extremely hot book Click Here!
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Author Resource:-
Tom Venuto's Feed The Body - Burn The Fat
If you want to burn fat off your body I can not recommend this book highly enough
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