It is well known that fats are not all bad. They are super important for a healthy body and can help yourself if you want to lose weight.
Fats add flavor to your food and shape your body. And they do even more for you:they are at the helm of every good
functioning body cell. They also regulate your immune system and your entire hormone system, including the production of
testosterone, progesterone and estrogen. In short, fats affect your period, energy level, fertility and how you feel. If you don't get enough (good) fats, your body will eventually struggle and you can suffer from ailments and inflammations that can lead to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
There are two categories of fats:
The fats that your body produces itself and the fats that occur in food. The fats in food come from plants and animals and are divided into saturated and unsaturated fats. There are no bad fats in nature. Only some fats become unhealthy because they are processed.
To bold you need good fats food. From good fats you get no extra fat cells and no higher cholesterol.
Especially if you eat processed carbohydrates, your pancreas produces a lot of insulin to convert these carbohydrates into glucose. But insulin has two other tasks:storing new body fats and preventing fat burning. So the more glucose is produced, the harder it becomes to get rid of your excess pounds.
To lose weight, the insulin level in your blood must be low. And that's the case if your blood sugar level doesn't fluctuate too much. For example, by leaving white flour products and going for good carbohydrates (vegetables, fruit) and good fats (avocado, olive oil, fish, nuts).
If you put butter (saturated fat . on a sandwich with cheese) ), the butter is the healthiest part of the meal, because it is a healthy building and fuel. Recent research (US National Institute of Health) shows that eating
of saturated fats does not necessarily have an effect on premature death, vascular disease and diabetes.
Cardiologist Remko Kuipers:“It only goes wrong when you replace your steak and fish with carbohydrates (sugars). Then you have thirty
percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease.”
Saturated fats are often seen as the enemy. They can be found in cookies, pastries and snacks, but also in
animal products such as fatty meat, whole milk products and full-fat cheese. Saturated fat raises the LDL cholesterol of the
blood, which is bad for the blood vessels and increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, according to the Nutrition Center on its website. The Nutrition Center therefore recommends replacing products with a lot of saturated fat with products with a lot of
unsaturated fat.
Different sounds are heard from the corner of orthomolecular, natural medicine. Saturated fats would not necessarily be unhealthy. In fact, there would even be healthy saturated fats.
Richard de Leth is a health management specialist, author and expert on vitality and health:
“Unhealthy fats are often seen as the enemy. And there are certainly saturated fats that are unhealthy. But there are also
saturated fats that are healthy. Healthy saturated fats are for example in coconut oil, ghee, breast milk and
butter. We are scared of fats, including saturated fats. And so we started eating less and
we have started eating more refined (manufactured) products as a replacement. That way we get a lot of trans fats
and less vegetable food.
A difficult issue, then, those saturated fats , where even experts disagree. What is agreed is that trans fats are the real bad guys. Vegetable oils (omega 6) such as sunflower oil have been produced in factory since 1913 and added to food as a cheap additive.
These trans fats do not occur in nature and are only the product of artificially processed food. Think of:
ready-to-use sauces, marinades, biscuits, pastries and many desserts. Trans fat is poison for your body, because it damages the cells.
Over the past five years, we have been eating about fifteen percent less fats and oils, about 22 grams per day (source:RIVM). That is far below the advice of the Nutrition Center, because the recommended daily amount is for women
on 40 grams of good oils and fats and for men on 65 grams.
Text:Esmir van Wering, Image:Getty Images
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