4 Good Reasons Why You Should Not Stop Eating Fat

One of the biggest misconceptions about food is that eating fat will make you fat. Fat is one of the macronutrients along with protein and carbohydrates. There are many different types of fat as a macronutrient, some people eat too much of certain types and others may not eat enough. The macronutrient fat is also called dietary fat in contrast to body fat.

The Benefit Of Eating Fats

Fat is a necessary macronutrient for the human body. It can help you build tissues and keep your biological functioning regular. People also have body fat which can be a cushion for your skin. If you had only bones and no fat, your body will not be able to survive very long. It is true that today many people have an excess amount of fat and too much fat is a bad thing. However, too little fat is also a bad thing. Fat can also help you stay warm in cold weather. Your body needs fat from food for producing energy. That is not the only way that your body can produce energy however. If there is sugar in your body, your body will use that for energy first, and only after you have used up the sugar then your body will burn the fat.

Different Types Of Fats

It is well known that there is unsaturated fat, saturated fat and trans fat. Simply looking at the label even with the nutritional info is not enough to give you information about whether the food item is healthy. Similar to how proteins are made up of different types of amino acids, there are also many different types of fatty acids. Salmon has a lot of fat, but it has what they call omega-3 fatty acid. It is believed that the omega-3 fatty acid is extremely beneficial for your health. There are some supplement stores that will sell fish oil including omega-3 fatty acid. Triglycerides, phospholipids, and sterols are different types of fats. It is important to have a balance when you consume fat. You do not want to consume too much, but you also do not want to consume too little.

How Much Fat Should You Consume?

If you are a regular adult, you can use the recommended dietary allowance as a guideline. Depending on your height and weight as well as the amount of physical activity you’re regularly partaking in, you may need more or less than the recommended dietary allowance. In the past a low fat diet was heavily marketed by food companies. In some ways it still is today. Do not fall for the marketing hype. If you completely eliminate fat from your diet, that is actually unhealthy. For your own personal situation, you can consult your physician or nutritionist.

How Can You Consume Less Fat?

There is a lot of fat in oil. Oil is used to make pans nonstick so any thing that is cooked in a pan with oil or fried with oil may have a lot of oil. If you want to consume less fat, you can reduce the amount of food that you eat which is cooked in oil. For example, if you eat scrambled eggs which are cooked in a pan with oil, you are also consuming the fat from the oil. You can switch to hard boiling the eggs instead, or soft boiling them, that way you will not be consuming any extra oil.

Cholesterol Is Not Your Enemy

Cholesterol fulfills many vital functions in the human body. When you are exposed to sunlight, cholesterol is used to make vitamin D. Cholesterol is used throughout the endocrine and nervous system for vital functioning of neurological processes. It is true that having an excess amount of cholesterol in your body can be harmful. Many foods that people eat are also high in cholesterol. For these reasons, people may want to eliminate cholesterol or reduce it from the diet. The fact is that a lot of the cholesterol in people’s bodies is actually produced by their own body and not from external sources. The liver in your body is producing cholesterol from the macronutrients that you are eating. Scientists have done a lot of research to find out if having high cholesterol is a result of something going on in the cholesterol production process in your body, or if it is from the amount of cholesterol that you consume from eating other types of food. If you are having a problem with consuming too much cholesterol, then you may want to consume fewer animal products. It all depends on how much cholesterol you feel comfortable with consuming as well as what your doctor recommends. Some people may need actually to consume more cholesterol, while others may need to consume less. In essence, consuming cholesterol is not a bad thing, it simply depends on your personal situation. Another thing to keep in mind is that there are some people with high cholesterol that live very long, and other people with normal levels of cholesterol that die younger. There are many different factors that can result in having problems from cholesterol. Do not a single out this one factor and place all the blame on it.