Avoid Unhealthy Fats
There are two kinds of fats: “good” fats that are absolutely essential to health, and "bad" fats that are extremely detrimental to our health.
Nutritional bandits gum up our body signals, confuse our internal conversation, create a toxic overload in the body, and rob us of our health when consumed regularly. Today we take a look at Nutritional Bandit #9: Unhealthy Fats.
When it comes to living a well-balanced lifestyle, fat can be a tricky nutrient to understand. Like proteins and carbohydrates, fats are essential to our diet. We definitely need a certain amount of "good" fat in our diet to stay healthy. It provides energy, stabilizes blood sugar, helps the body absorb important vitamins and minerals, is essential for cell and nerve health and blood clotting, reducing inflammation, makes food taste better, and helps up feel full after meals. However, while good fats can benefit your health in significant ways, other unhealthy fats can hinder your body's performance and have been linked to health problems, like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and even disease. Knowing the difference can help you determine which fats to avoid and which to eat in moderation.
Fats are determined to be “good” or “bad” depending on many factors: what kind of fat, how it has been “treated”, how old it is, how it has been used in food preparation, how much, and in what balance. But for the most part two types, saturated fat and trans fat, are responsible for giving "fat" a bad rap in the nutrition world. Unfortunately, these fats have increased in our diet as they make us fatter and contribute to inflammation, which plays a role in nearly every chronic disease on the planet.
Researchers have found that most saturated fats (butter, cheese, meat, — usually solid at room temperature) become unhealthy during cooking, charbroiling, artificial processing or poor storage. Trans-saturated fats or hydrogenated fats are oils with extra hydrogen pumped into them to cause a reconstruction of the chemical bonds and to delay rancidity (as in margarine and shortening) and are now known to be one of the worst fats we can consume. They are found in commercial baked goods, chips & crackers, fried foods, fast foods, coffee creamers, candy, and more. Oils that are used in cooking at high temperatures or left unused turn rancid (including fried foods, roasted nuts & coffee beans) and add to the toxic burden of the body. All of these fats are MAJOR culprits in many health problems, including all forms of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, PMS, and certain types of mental illness, and it is recommended to limit consumption of them in a healthy diet.
Personally, I NEVER eat at fast foods places...ever. And the only "fried" foods I consume are occasionally sweet potato or regular fries IF they are from a very clean source. Also occasionally I do enjoy some of the other foods mentioned here, but am VERY picky about the quality and keep the amount very small. Eating healthy doesn't mean you have to give up fun foods - just make sure they are the exception rather than the norm.