Oils - Good and Bad

Oils - Good and Bad

Oils, and fats in general, have the problem of being high in calories. Each gram of fat has about 9 calories, and each gram of protein or carbohydrate has about 3.4 calories. That means that for each gram of fat that you consume you get over twice as many calories as for each gram of protein or carbohydrate. For most of us, who are watching our calories, this is a pretty important fact.

That said some fats are particularly bad for us, and some are much less unhealthy. Unquestionably the worst fats are those that contain trans-fatty acids. These are fatty acids that don't tend to occur in natural uncooked foods, but were in many processed foods until recently, and remain in some foods. IN general it is best to try to consume close to zero trans fatty acids. They are very atherogenic, meaning they strongly predispose to fatty deposits in the artery walls, and lead to vascular disease like stroke, heart attack, and peripheral vascular disease. Read labels, and they are easy to avoid.

Next on the list of fats to keep low in your diet are saturated fats. These in general are fats found in animal fat. They tend to lead to increases in LDL cholesterol after metabolism by the liver. Unfortunately this means we need to keep our meat consumption low, especially the tastiest cuts of meat. Try to especially minimize things like hot dogs, sausage, bacon, and fatty cuts of beef and pork.

Vegetable oils are less unhealthy in general, but differ considerably in their makeup. The healthiest vegetable oils contain lots of mono-unsaturated oils. Olive oil is among the healthiest of oils in that it is very high in mono-unsaturated oils. Peanut oil, including peanut butter is also very high in mono-unsaturated oils.

Fish oil tends to be very high in omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, which are heart healthy. Some vegetable oils including flax seed oil are also high in these type oils.

The take home message for those of you not interested in memorizing long lists of foods to use and avoid is that in general all oils and fats are high in calories, so need to be used in moderation. Vegetable oils are better than most animal fats, with the exception of fish oils, and olive oil is a great oil for cooking.