Facts About Fats:
Saturated Fats, Trans Fats, and
Avoiding Coronary Heart Disease

Though saturated fats are supposed to be almost eliminated from our diet, in favor of low fat foods if we want to avoid coronary heart disease, recent studies have shown that this is not necessarily the case. It's not so much the amount of fat you eat, but rather the type of fat that is dangerous. In fact, people who don't get enough fat in their diet suffer from a number of health problems.

Fats provide a concentrated source of energy for the body, and are used to store energy, insulate body tissues, and transport fat-soluble vitamins through the blood. And by using more of the “good fats” you can actually lower your level of bad cholesterol, reduce your risk of coronary heart disease and even lose weight!

Far from being the evil substance it has been made out to be, some saturated fat is actually necessary and can be beneficial to your health. Coronary heart disease is increasingly being found to be caused by our modern diet, including the excess consumption of hydrogenated oils, eating too many refined carbohydrates in the form of sugar and white flour, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Antimicrobial fats, such as tropical oils rich in lauric acid, once protected us from the viruses and bacteria that have been associated with the buildup of arterial plaque that leads to cardiovascular disease. These fats have all but disappeared from the food supply due to people's unwarranted fear of all saturated fats.

Unfortunately, dietary fat can easily become damaged by exposure to heat and oxygen, causing rancidity, which damages our cells and leads to arterial plaque buildup. This is found in fats that have become oxidized by being heated to high temperatures in frying and other high-temperature processes.

There are so many different kinds of fats available that it's hard to know which are the healthiest choice. Here we provide you with some facts about fats:

Saturated Fats

Saturated fats are solid at room temperature and are most often found in meats, dairy products such as eggs, milk, butter, and cheese, and tropical oils. They are very stable and do not normally go rancid, even when heated for cooking purposes.

There's a huge difference between butter and margarine in relation to your health. Butter is a saturated fat and margarine a trans fat. Unfortunately, they are usually lumped together into a single category as being bad for you.

For instance, The USDA's New Food Pyramid advises, “Limit solid fats like butter, stick margarine, shortening, and lard.” Butter and lard are much healthier for you than stick margarine and shortening which are made of trans fatty acids.

There has never been sufficient proof that saturated fat actually causes heart disease. Authors from the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California in a review several studies published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, noted that many researchers have narrowly focused on the theory that saturated fats raise LDL cholesterol and the risk of coronary artery disease (the so-called “diet-heart” hypothesis).

The authors found there was actually no strong evidence indicating that lowering the intake of saturated fat lowered the amount of heart disease or death. They went on to say, “The conclusion of an analysis of the history and politics behind the diet-heart hypothesis was that after 50 years of research, there was no evidence that a diet low in saturated fat prolongs life.”

Since 1910, we have drastically reduced our consumption of animal fat and butter from 18 pounds a year to only four. Nevertheless, the rate of coronary heart disease and cancer has skyrocketed. Surely, if saturated fats were the problem the rates of these diseases would have been reduced. Over the same time period, however, our consumption of refined vegetable oils, much of it in the form of partially hydrogenated or trans fat, increased by 400%, and the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased by 60%.

Saturated fats actually increase levels of HDL, the “good” cholesterol, which helps remove plaque from your artery walls, decreasing your risk of cardiovascular disease. When added to the diet it also reduces the levels of something called Lp(a), that is associated with a greater risk of heart disease. Currently, eating saturated fat is the only way of reducing this substance, as there are no effective medications currently available.

For calcium to be incorporated into our bones it needs some saturated fat, so low fat or skimmed milk are useless as a calcium source unless you incorporate some of these fats into your meal. Saturated fats are also necessary for good immune function, and build a healthy nervous system and digestive tract. Fats are responsible for delivering the important fat-soluble vitamins to our cells, such as vitamin A, E, D,
and K.

There are three groups of saturated fatty acids: short chain, medium chain and long chain. Unless you consume them in mass quantities, the short and medium chain saturated fatty acids don't turn into body fat, but are instead used immediately by the body for energy. So fats that contain more short to medium chain fatty acids, as is found in butter fat and tropical oils like coconut oil, have fewer calories than the same amount of fats with longer chain fatty acids.

Healthy Healing Oils's article on coconut oil provides more information on the health benefits of this saturated oil.

Unsaturated Fats

Monounsaturated Fats

Because of their molecular structure, monounsaturated fats tend to be liquid at room temperature, though turn solid when chilled. Like saturated fats, they are relatively stable and do not easily go rancid, putting them at the top of the healthy cooking oils. The most common of the monounsaturated fats is oleic acid, the main part of olive oil, as well as being found in almonds, pecans, cashews, peanuts and avocados.

Monounsaturated fats both lower “bad” cholesterol and raise “bad” cholesterol and provide a number of other health benefits such as lowering your risk of heart disease and stroke, aiding weight loss, especially reducing dangerous belly fat, lessening the pain and stiffness of rheumatoid arthritis, and decreasing the risk for breast cancer. They also provide nutrients the body needs, such as vitamin E.

Polyunsaturated Fats

The polyunsaturated fats found most frequently in the foods we eat are omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids. Because the body is unable to make these, they are called “essential fatty acids” or EFA's, and we must get them from the foods we eat. These fats are liquid even when refrigerated.

Though we have been told that polyunsaturated fats are the healthiest for cooking, this is not true, as they are unstable and go rancid easily, omega 3 fatty acids in particular. Because of this, polyunsaturated oils should never be heated.

Polyunsaturated oils can be used for things such as salad dressing, where they are not heated. Be sure to choose an oil that says it is “unrefined” and comes in a dark bottle, as refined oils have been heated and thus are already rancid from processing.

Though we do need to consume some omega 6 oils, most people get far too much of it, as it is found abundantly in the western diet. The ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 oils should be at least 4 to 1, though the ratio most people actually consume is closer to 20 to 1!

Try to keep your consumption of polyunsaturated oils lower in comparison to your intake of foods and oils high in omega 3. Vegetable oils such as sunflower, corn, soy, safflower, and canola are high in omega 6, so it's best to avoid these and instead choose olive oil, coconut oil, sesame oil, and organic butter for cooking purposes.

One way to prevent heart disease is to increase your intake of foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids. Studies have shown that omega 3 fatty acids work by preventing the buildup of fatty deposits in the arteries. This can be found in the largest quantities in oily fish such as salmon, sardines, mackerel and herring, and in grass-fed beef, which has up to four times as much omega 3 as conventionally raised beef.

Trans Fats and Interesterified Fats

Of all the fats to avoid, trans fats are at the top of the list. You may be wondering, “what is trans fat?” We hear everywhere about the dangers of trans fats in our diet. Trans fats are oils that are made solid through hydrogenation, a process of heating the oils under pressure with hydrogen and a catalyst. This process turns liquid oils into unhealthy solids, which are widely used in processed foods such as margarine, baked goods and snack foods in order to extend shelf life, as well as being used for frying.

Trans fats lower “good” HDL cholesterol, raise high “bad” LDL cholesterol, increase blockages in the arteries, increase blood insulin levels, encourage insulin resistance, lower immune response and cause changes to the structure of our cells. So eliminating the hydrogenated oil and substituting a healthy fat such as butter or olive oil is much better for your health.

Interesterified fats are even worse. Manufacturers will often use this type of fat so they can claim their products contain “no trans fats”, however, this fat is even more harmful than trans fat, containing fully hydrogenated oil.

Interesterified fats were found to depress the level of HDL (good cholesterol) far more than trans fat, and it raises blood glucose levels and depresses the level of insulin, suggesting that interesterified fats could lead to diabetes. Some peanut butters now are made with interesterified fats, so be sure to read the label when you buy it to be sure it contains only peanuts and salt and no hydrogenated oil.

All fats and oils, whether of vegetable or animal origin, are some combination of saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated linoleic acid and linolenic acid.

In general, animal fats such as butter, lard and tallow contain about 40-60% saturated fat and are solid at room temperature. Vegetable oils from northern climates contain a preponderance of polyunsaturated fatty acids and are liquid at room temperature. But tropical vegetable oils, such as coconut oil, are liquid in the tropics but as hard as butter in northern climates due to their high saturation.

Vegetable oils are more saturated in hot climates because the increased saturation helps maintain stiffness in plant leaves. Olive oil with its preponderance of oleic acid is the product of a temperate climate. It is liquid at warm temperatures but hardens when refrigerated.

So don't be afraid to incorporate some saturated fats into your diet! It will not increase your risk of coronary heart disease and is far better for you than most refined cooking oils.