The Importance Of Fat

Fat gets a bit of a bad rap. Yes, it is energy dense meaning there’s a lot of calories in a small amount. But its essential for our health. There are essential fatty acids we HAVE to eat from our diet because our body cannot make them. Fat plays several roles in our body, plus its important for flavour, texture, and mouthfeel of the foods we enjoy. Here’s a quick guide to the different types of fat, what they are used for in our bodies, and approximately how much do you need.

Most patients who enter my office classify fat into ‘good’ and ‘bad’. If you know me by now, then you know my answer to this is… “its not that simple.” Fat can be found in nature in saturated, trans, mono-unsaturated, and poly-unsaturated forms. So whats the difference? And why would some people view these as good vs bad?

Saturated and trans-fat forms usually get classified into ‘bad’ fat. This is because the body can use them to make cholesterol and triglycerides (two factors when in excess can contribute to heart disease). So lets break this down a bit further and see what types of foods you need to be aware of for saturated fat.

You can tell a saturated fat because it usually holds its shape at room temperature. Picture a block of butter, kept out at room temp its soft but keeps its shape. This type of fat is more rigid, so it stacks easily for storage both in products on grocery shelves, and inside our bodies to store for extra energy. You can see an example of this if you cook meat, then the trimmings will often congeal (solidify) at room temperature.

This type of fat is associated with higher cholesterol levels. Your body makes cholesterol using saturated fat. But its important to distinguish that your body can make saturated fat very easily, so you don’t need to be eating saturated fat in order for your body to make it or for you body to make cholesterol. Therefore saturated fat isn’t something to fear, but more to monitor in balance with other types of fat. Foods with saturated fat are butter, creams, cheese, egg yolks, lard, coconut butter, and palm oil.

Trans-fat does occur naturally in some foods but its found in a much smaller amounts than we see in today’s food supply. Trans-fat occurs more abundantly today because manufacturing companies produce it to make foods more shelf-stable. 70 years ago when saturated fat and coronary artery disease were found to be related, consumers stopped purchasing the likes of bacons and high fat meats, butter and creams. When manufacturing companies attempted to remove saturated fat from foods and use other types of fat, they found the products didn’t last as long and usually spoiled before they hit consumer shelves. Thus, the trans-fat was found. Manufacturing companies could take an unsaturated fat (previously thought of as a ‘good’ fat) and turn it into a product that looked and acted like saturated fat. These trans-fats allowed products to stay fresh to reach consumer shelves and could be marketed as ‘healthy’ for you because they didn’t contain the dreaded ‘saturated fat’. The problem being that we know now that trans-fat is associated with coronary artery disease as well! Since the body doesn’t make much trans-fat, its advisable that people consume as little trans-fat as possible. Trans-fat can be found in foods like bakery items, fried foods, and other foods with ‘partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil’ in the ingredient list.

Now that we know what and where to find saturated fats, what’s the deal with unsaturated fats? Well, they are as the name suggests, they are not fully saturated. Because they are missing some elements compared to saturated fat, they have a different chemical structure. They can range from missing one element (i.e. Mono-unsaturated) to missing several elements (i.e. Poly-unsaturated). These structural changes in the chemical make-up can result in it being liquid form at room temperature. Because these are not stored very easily in the body, the body tends to use them for other roles such as creating cell membranes or managing inflammation. Mono-unsaturated fats can be found in olive oils, avocados, peanuts and other nut oils. Poly-unsaturated fats are often known as Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats. Most people have heard of Omega 3 and Omega 6 because these are ESSENTIAL fatty acids. Our bodies CANNOT make them and therefore we must get them from our diet to support our health.

Omega 3 poly-unsaturated fats are most abundantly found in fish and fish oils, flax seeds, and walnuts. We need less of these than Omega 6 fatty acids because they are more potent. However, people often don’t get enough Omega 3 fats. Most people would need to be consuming fish 2-3x per week to meet their requirements. If you’re someone who doesn’t eat fish or doesn’t eat fish often enough, then you may want to consider an Omega 3 supplement. Omega 3’s help balance the inflammation in your body, supports mental health and the immune system.

Omega 6 poly-unsaturated fats are found most abundantly in vegetable oils, nuts and seeds. These fats are often found with other vitamins such as Vitamin E and can help support a healthy immune system, hair, skin, and nails.

Now that we have a general understanding of where these fats are found and the roles they play in our body, how much do you need? The average person will need about 30% of their calories per day to come from fat. Assuming a standard diet, this would be approximately 65g of fat per day. I usually recommend 1 tablespoon fat at each meal plus eating fish 2-3x per week. This could look like:

Breakfast: 1 tablespoon butter on 2slices toast, OR 1 tablespoon peanut butter in oatmeal, OR 1/2 avocado smashed on toast

Lunch: 1 tablespoon mayo on a sandwich OR in chicken/tuna salad, OR 1 tablespoon salad dressing

Dunner: 1 tablespoon butter on potatoes or vegetables, OR 1 tablespoon gravy over meat and potatoes, OR 1 tablespoon oil used in cooking