Good Fats-Bad Fats, What Are Trans Fats and What to Include in Your Dietary Fats

When it comes to dietary fats, we are always told to choose unsaturated fats over saturated fats. Because saturated fats are believed to be the bad fats. However, in reality this belief is a misleading one; in fact, it's the amount and the type of saturated or unsaturated fats that matter. Both fats have some benefits to offer to our body, except of course the trans fatty acids (or trans fats).

The trans fatty acids are processed or chemically altered fats; these fats are often used in packaged foods, they are referred to as hydrogenated vegetable oils that are solid at room temperature. Trans fats are harmful to our body because they raise the bad cholesterol (LDL) levels and lower the good cholesterol (HDL) levels. We're know that people with high LDL and low HDL ratio are at higher risk of getting coronary heart disease, stroke, arthritis and other chronic conditions.

Here are the important things to remember: you don't have to cut out all fats from your diet. You should include monounsaturated fats in your diets and totally avoid trans fats.

Rich sources of monounsaturated fats can be found in olive oil, hazelnuts, almonds, avocado, canola oil and sesame seeds. Also, another good fats you should include in your diet are omega-3 polyunsaturated fats. Rich sources for omega-3 fats are found in marine fish such as tuna, mackerel and sardines.

Next, avoid foods that contain trans fats. These include margarine, french fries, noodles cups, packaged foods, frozen foods (such as frozen pies, pot pies, waffles, etc), doughnuts, cream-filled cookies, etc. If you want to find out a complete list of foods that contain trans fats, go to Wikipedia or search the Net.

What makes the fats harmful to our body is their chemical structure. For example, trans fats are long-chain saturated fats. The longer the chain and the more saturated the fat, the harder and higher its melting point; hence if we have too much of these so called bad fats in our body, they won't be easily broken down and will be deposited as body fats. Even if you are a skinny person doesn't mean that you can eat more trans fats; because they'll form clogging deposits in your heart, brain and blood vessels as well.

So, in choosing your dietary fats, always remember to substitute good fats for the bad. Limit the amount of long-chain saturated fats and completely eliminate trans fats from your diet plan.