Good Fat and Bad Fat

[jc95605]

Ok i hear alot about this. Theres ppl on these boards that often refer to having good fat verus bad fat. Like peanut butter is good fat. Ok.....but why. What makes fat "good?" Why is it "good" fat? I've heard that the good fat goes straight to building muscle like a bulking cycle. So I guess my question would be:

Whats the difference between good and bad fats?

What are some examples of good fats (where are they found)?

Come on LTN & legobricks i know you guys are gonna like this question.

[ray0414]

trans fat: AVOID AT ALL COSTS, clogs arteries and causes abdominal fat gain. raises LDL (bad cholesterol) and and lowers HDL (good cholesterol) at the same time. This type of fat is mostly found in fast food, cake, brownies, donuts, other junk foods and regular foods, just check labels. *

saturated fat: BAD BUT CAN STILL EAT IT, just dont over do it. raises LDL (bad cholesterol). This fat is mostly animal fat, primarily beef and dairy.

polyunsaturated fat: considered a good fat, om ega 3's are in this category.

monounsaturated fat: THE BEST, get lots of it. raises HDL (good cholesterol that eats up LDL) found in olive oil, nuts, avacados.

make sure u dont buy cheap peanut butter, the cheap kind is filled with trans fat which is what u dont want, buy some natural peanut butter.

***due to lobbiest, comapanies can list a product as having 0grams of trans fat if it contains less than .5grams per serving, but if a product has .4 grams per serving, it can say 0grams on it, but if it has 30 servings per box or jar, do the math, its not really free of trans fat, make sure it doesnt say partially hydrogenated oil on it***

[jc95605]

Ok so when the label just says "total fat" and doesn't break it down then its prolly all bad fat and stay away from it then right. I dunno dieting is my bad area so i'm trying to get a lil info on it.

[AdamGH]

good article for you, it is really long

Let me state this fact for the record: EATING FAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT! That is, as long as you eat the right kinds of fat without overdoing the quantity. Yes, fat (at 9 calories/gram) is more calorie dense than protein or carbohydrates (at 4 calories/gram), but eating adequate quantities of healthy fats will actually help you lose body fat and create a lean healthy body. The confusion about dietary fat is easy to understand in today’s society. Not only do you get mixed messages from food manufacturing advertisers, but to make things worse, you even get mixed messages from the medical industry on what kinds and how much fat you should include in your diet.

Some so called “experts” still stick to the assertion that a low-fat/high-carbohydrate diet is the best way to lose weight and prevent heart disease. On the other end of the spectrum, other so called “experts” argue that a high-fat, high-protein, low-carb diet is the magic secret to losing weight and preventing heart disease. As with most arguments among experts, the answer for the majority of people lies somewhere in the middle. When you review specific population studies of traditional diets of various groups of people around the world, it begins to become clear that there is no magic ratio of macronutrients that will prevent heart disease and obesity.

Instead, it is the processing of foods that is the key factor in acquiring a lean healthy body. For example, it is known that heart disease, type II diabetes, and obesity are unheard of in historical Eskimo populations despite consuming an extremely high fat diet comprised of mostly whale blubber, seal fat, cold water fish, and organ meat. Take note that although the Eskimos ate a very high fat diet, their diet was all natural and contained none of the processed foods that comprise the majority of the typical western diet.

Another example of very healthy populations is that of Pacific Islanders and several countries of southeast Asia where coconut fat traditionally has comprised 60%-70% of their total caloric intake. These populations that relied on coconut fat (which is over 90% saturated fat) as such a high percentage of their diet were historically very lean and once again, heart disease, type II diabetes, and obesity were practically non-existent prior to the infiltration of modern western dietary influences. As with the Eskimos, the Pacific Islanders ate virtually no processed foods typical of a modern western diet.

Yet another example traditional populations exhibiting superb health despite eating a very high fat diet is that of certain African tribes such as the Masai and Samburu. These tribes were known to consume the majority of their diet through whole raw milk, beef, and blood, consuming an average of 4-5 times the quantity of fat as disease-ridden Americans, yet these tribes remained free of modern degenerative diseases and display very lean bodies! Traditional Mediterranean diets are also known to be very high in fat (sometimes up to 70% of calories), yet these populations again remained in very good health. There are many more examples of the traditional diets of specific populations around the world and the corresponding excellent health of these populations.

Although these diets differ drastically in their composition of carbs, fat, and protein, the one aspect that remains consistent with all traditional diets which accounts for their numerous health benefits is that they were comprised of food in its most natural and unprocessed state – the way we were meant to eat food.

The historical increase in the use of highly processed and refined foods such as refined flour, refined sugar, and refined/hydrogenated vegetable oils coincides with the increase in degenerative diseases such as heart disease and obesity. Food processing is one of those instances where technology can actually be a bad thing!

As I’ve previously mentioned, most people need adequate amounts of healthy fibrous carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats to maintain optimal health and create the fat-burning machine that is your body. Restricting or eliminating one or two of these important macronutrients will almost always detrimentally affect your efforts to get lean. So now that we’ve established that eating adequate amounts (generally 20-40% of your total calories) of healthy fats will actually help you lose body fat, let’s examine which fats are good and which are bad. First, please understand that all fats found in nature are made up of some ratio of polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and saturated fat. How much of each type of fat is determined by what part of the world the plant or animal lives (i.e. what climate, soil type, etc.).
To understand which fats are healthy and which are unhealthy, just ask yourself the following simple yet important questions:

•For plant based fat sources - Is it a minimally processed natural product or a heavily processed chemically altered product?

•For animal based fat sources (meat or dairy) - Did it originate from mass production farm raised animals or from free range animals and/or wild game?


Once you ask these questions, the answer to healthy or unhealthy fat becomes intuitive. For example, most modern medical recommendations insist that the saturated fat in animal fat is unhealthy. This may be true if the animal was farm raised and fattened up with grains and soy that are not the natural diet of the animal. If an animal is “free range” or “grass fed” and allowed to eat the majority of its diet through grasses and other forage that it was meant to eat naturally, the meat will generally be much leaner and any fats within will be much healthier for your consumption.

For example, grass fed beef is known to contain much higher quantities of the healthy fats such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and *****-3 fatty acids compared with grain fed beef. The same is true of the milk from grass fed cows versus grain fed cows. You can also bank on the fact that wild game will almost always contain healthy fats and will be much leaner than farm raised animals. In addition, contrary to popular belief, milk fat is actually a very healthy fat, but ONLY as it occurs naturally in raw milk from grass-fed free range cows. However, once again, the technology of food processing messes up a good thing by pasteurizing and homogenizing the milk fat (heating it and breaking it up into very small particles, respectively).

Unlike raw milk fat, pasteurized and homogenized milk fat is thought to have negative effects in the body. It may be hard for you to find organic meat and dairy from “free range” animals unless you shop at “whole food” or “organic” markets, and you will find it very hard to find “raw” milk in the US (visit www.realmilk.com/where.html to find out if raw milk is available near you), so your easiest strategy may be to limit animal fat by choosing fat free dairy and the leanest cuts of meat possible. Just realize that animal fats from meat and whole dairy are important sources of fat soluble vitamins, so eating some “whole” yogurt or “whole” cheeses on occasion may be a good idea. Just try to stay away from “whole” milk in order to avoid the homogenized milk fat. Personally, I luckily have access to a health food store in my area that sells raw milk from farms in the region. When I can get an order, I’ll choose whole raw milk. If I’m stuck at the typical chain grocery store, where
unhomogenized milk is not available, I’ll choose skim milk to avoid the homogenized milk fat.

Moving on to plant based fats, but remaining on the subject of saturated fat, it is important to understand that the saturated fats in minimally processed tropical oils (such as coconut oil, palm oil, and cocoa butter) have received an undeserved bad rap. More and more scientific evidence is mounting relating to the numerous health benefits of tropical oils. For example, coconut oil is largely comprised of a healthy saturated fat called lauric acid (a medium chain triglyceride) which has many health benefits and is lacking in modern western diets that are so highly comprised of heavily processed unhealthy polyunsaturated oils like soybean, corn, and cottonseed oils. In addition, the fat from cocoa beans (cocoa butter) is highly comprised of another healthy saturated fat called stearic acid, which, along with the high antioxidant content of cocoa, make dark bittersweet chocolate (not milk chocolate) a very healthy yet tasty treat! You can begin to see that if a source of dietary fat is unprocessed and natural, it will be healthy, regardless of whether it is mostly saturated, polyunsaturated, or monounsaturated.

Now lets move on to a discussion to better understand the unsaturated plant based oils which are mostly comprised of a combination of monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat (with small amounts of saturated fat). When it comes to monounsaturated fat, you pretty much can’t go wrong, because it is a fairly stable fat (not overly reactive to light and heat). Great sources of monounsaturated fat are extra virgin olive oil, avocados, pecans, macadamias, and almonds.

You have to be more careful when it comes to polyunsaturated fats. Many researchers believe that the overabundance of refined and/or hydrogenated (the source of the deadly trans fats) polyunsaturated fats such as soybean, corn, and cottonseed oils in modern western diets are the main culprit for the explosion of heart disease and obesity since the middle of the 20th century.

Polyunsaturated fats are much more reactive to heat and light and therefore become highly toxic when processed and heated as is done in almost all processed foods on the market today. In addition, modern diets are so heavily skewed towards *****-6 polyunsaturated fats compared to *****-3 polyunsaturated fats, that most people eating a modern western diet are deficient in *****-3’s.

Don’t misunderstand me here - polyunsaturated fats are an important part of a healthy diet. In fact, *****-6 and *****-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids are what are referred to as the “essential fatty acids” because our bodies cannot manufacture them. However, because they are so unstable and highly reactive, the trick with polyunsaturated fats is to eat them as minimally processed as possible in the form of raw nuts and seeds or carefully extracted flax and fish oils. Due to the overuse of soy and corn products in animal feed as well as in food manufacturing, the *****-6/*****-3 polyunsaturated fat ratio of our food supply is far too high in *****-6 currently. Flax seeds, flax oil, fish oil, and walnuts are the best natural sources of *****-3’s helping to bring you back to a normal balance of *****-6 to *****-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Take note that the powerful multi-billion dollar edible oil industry (based on mostly refined and hydrogenated polyunsaturated oils) has influenced the media, the government, (and even the medical industry to a degree) to continue to assert that the processed polyunsaturated oils are healthy and that saturated fats are the culprit for heart disease. On the contrary, studies performed that don’t have monetary ties to the food manufacturers have indicated that the refined and hydrogenated polyunsaturated oils are the real problem, and not the perfectly natural saturated fats.

First, realize that cholesterol in the body is a healing substance and is deposited on the artery walls to help heal a problem. The problem is that the overabundance of highly toxic refined and hydrogenated polyunsaturated oils in a modern western diet causes inflammation in the arteries signaling the need for cholesterol deposition for healing.

These dangerous oils are literally in almost all processed food on the shelves of grocery stores and in the deep fryers of every restaurant. If you don’t believe me, consider that animal products (meat and dairy) have been a main constituent of the human diet for thousands of years, yet heart disease was practically non-existent until the mass incorporation of refined and hydrogenated oils into the food supply in the middle of the 20th century.

This also correlates to the mass inclusion of highly processed and refined carbohydrates into the food supply. Another fact to keep in mind is that as heart disease and obesity grew throughout the 20th century, the percentage of saturated fat in the average diet decreased, while the percentage of highly processed (refined and/or hydrogenated) polyunsaturated fat in the average diet drastically increased. Starting to see the connection?

As long as you eat a variety of minimally processed fat sources, you don’t need to worry too much about whether you’re eating saturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated fats because you will inadvertently obtain a healthy balance of fats. The key is just to keep your foods as natural and unprocessed as possible. Avoiding processed foods as much as possible will help you avoid the deadly trans fats that are present in almost all processed food on the market today. The best fats to cook or fry with are saturated fats such as coconut oil, palm oil, or butter, since saturated fats are less reactive to heat and create fewer toxins and free radicals when exposed to heat and light. However, to reduce calories, it is best to try to cook without oils by methods such as steaming, baking, or boiling instead of frying.

Examples of healthy fats to include in your diet are nuts (pecans, walnuts, almonds, macadamias, cashews, etc.), seeds (pumpkin seeds, de-shelled sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds), avocados (or guacamole), extra virgin olive oil, coconut (coconut milk and/or virgin coconut oil), “natural” or “organic” peanut butter (or other natural nut butters like almond butter, etc), fish and fish oils, flax oil, and even cocoa butter (from dark bittersweet chocolate – look for chocolate with 70% or greater cocoa content).

It is important to eat a variety of healthy fats so that you get the benefits of the various types. Tasty ways to add raw nuts and seeds to your diet are to add them to yogurt, cold cereal, hot cereal, and salads. A suggestion to get flax seed oil and extra virgin olive oil into your diet is to make your own homemade salad dressing made up of two thirds balsamic vinegar mixed with one third equal parts olive oil and flax oil. Olive oil and flax oil can also be added to your meal replacement protein shakes if you choose to use them as convenient meals. Another great oil you can use for salad dressings and to mix into protein shakes is “Udo’s Choice Perfected Oil Blend” (available at supplement shops or health food stores), which is a very healthy blend of carefully extracted oils from flax seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, coconut, rice bran, and oat bran. You can also find various “natural” nut and seed butters such as almond butter, cashew butter, macadamia butter, and sunflower seed butter to expand your horizons beyond just peanut butter. In addition, you can find virgin coconut oil and learn more about some of the many health benefits of coconut oil at www.coconutoil.com.

[oneshot]

good read adam