Lets cut straight to the fat fact file:

Fat is what we call a macronutrient. This means that we need it in relatively large amounts in our diet. We measure our needs for fat in grams rather than micrograms.

Fat provides us with energy, also known as calories. We get 9kcal per gram of fat.

Fats are made up mostly of hydrogen and carbon atoms.

Our body can produce most types of fat that we need. However, there are two “fatty acids” which our body cannot produce, and which we therefor need to get from our diet. These are an omega 3 fatty acid and an omega 6 fatty acid.

Also, vitamins A, D, E and K are transported in fat, as are some important antioxidants.

Our body can store fat as a source of energy. We often store this fat around our hips and our waist.  But we can also store fat between our organs and under our skin. We can then break these fat stores down into glucose when our bodies need additional energy.

The terms lipid, fat and oil are often confused.

While lipid is the more general term, fat often refers to a lipid that is solid at room temperature. Meanwhile oil is usually liquid at room temperature. Just for your reference, I tend to use the word “fat” to describe the nutrient rather than the word “lipid”.

So what do we use fat for?

Well as we mentioned earlier, we can use fat for energy. Fat is also important to help insulate our bodies and protect us from the cold and from shock when you fall. Also, our cells have some fat included as part of their structures. And fat is found as a layer to protect our nerves and our brain. Fats are also needed to produce hormones and to keep our joints healthy.

However, it is important to be aware that fats come in many shapes and sizes. And some are more useful than others.

You may have heard of the terms saturated and unsaturated fats. They have a different structure which causes them to have rather different effects. The difference is that saturated fats have no double bonds between their carbon molecules. Meanwhile, unsaturated fats have one or more double bonds.

Saturated Fats

These are usually solid at room temperature. We often find saturated fat in animal foods like beef, the skin on chicken, pork, and high-fat dairy foods (eg:  butter, cheese, cream). High amounts of saturated fat also are found in many fast, processed, and baked foods. These include pizza, desserts, burgers, and biscuits and pastries. Some plant fats can be saturated fats also, such as coconut and palm kernel oils.

Unsaturated fats

These are more commonly liquid at room temperature. They can be monounsaturated (meaning they have 1 double bond in their structure), or they can be polyunsaturated (meaning they have more than 1 double bond).

Mono-unsaturated fats

These mostly come from plants, including avocados, nuts such almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, and pecans; and seeds, such as sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds. It is also in plant oils, such as olive, peanut, sesame, and rapeseed oils.

Poly-unsaturated fats

We can find poly-unsaturated fats, including the important omega 3 fats, in plant-based oils like soybean, corn, and safflower oils. We can also find it in walnuts, flaxseeds, sunflower seeds. Oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring, tuna, and trout are also good sources.

Trans fats

You can create unsaturated fats that are solid at room temperature by putting them through a process called “hydrogenation”. This then makes them more useful for baking for example. Margarine is an example of a hydrogenated vegetable oil. However, sometimes during the hydrogenation process, a fat called a trans-fat can also be produced. These are then most commonly found in fatty processed foods such as cakes, cookies, crackers and fried foods.

Ahhh, with all the chemical science behind us, we must of course take a look at what effect the various types of fat have on our health.

And this is an area that has come to the attention of the media a lot in recent years. Research continues to be done in this area, with some studies showing no link between saturated fat and our heart health. Meanwhile others show that a diet lower in saturated fat may protect our heart health.

Despite this rise in conflicting studies, the consensus currently remains that there is a strong and consistent links between the following:

• Eating saturated fat
• Our blood cholesterol levels
• The increasing risk of cardiovascular disease

A big factor in looking at the health effects of the fats we eat lies in the effect it has on our blood cholesterol levels. Eating large amounts of saturated fats can lead to more LDL cholesterol (known as the bad cholesterol) to build up in our blood. This can form fatty deposits in our arteries and increase our risk of heart disease and stroke.

Meanwhile, the unsaturated fats can help us to increase our HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol) levels. This helps us to pick up any bad LDL cholesterol and bring it back to our liver. Here it can be broken down and gotten rid of.

To protect our heart health, we want a high HDL to LDL cholesterol ratio.

This is where Transfats come into the picture.

They reduce the amount of good HDL cholesterol in our blood and can increase our bad LDL cholesterol levels, and therefor completely throw off the important protective balance.

Therefore, many health authorities such as the World Health Organisation, the British dietetic association and the World heart association continue to recommend to reduce the amount of trans and saturated fats that we eat, and to replace it with more unsaturated fats.

Another aspect of fat that may affect our health is that fat is a very concentrated source of calories. This means that it is easy to eat a large amount of calories in a very small portion of a fatty food. We all know that obesity is a growing problem in many countries. And risks of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and many other conditions being linked to being overweight and obese.

Try to eat moderate amounts of fats, and choose to eat foods that naturally contain unsaturated fat. Do this rather than eating foods high in added saturated fat such as cakes, biscuits and fried foods.

And in doing so, you might be able to keep your weight healthy. And as an added bonus, you might limit the risks that saturated fats pose on our heart health.

Meanwhile, some studies are showing that a diet higher in unsaturated (good) fats and lower in saturated (bad) fats can:

• Lead to lower rates of inflammation
• Have a protective effect on our brain and cognition!

So we do need some fat in our diet.

The WHO recommends we take up to 30% of our energy daily from fats. However, we should aim to keep our daily saturated fat intake to below 10% of our total daily energy. And keep transfats below 1% of our daily energy.

I hope this post has helped you understand fat, and its role in our diets, a little better. The main take home message really is to not avoid fat completely, and not to eat it to excess. You’ll hear me saying this a lot – but everything in moderation is key! Try to choose healthy foods that naturally contain fats, such as nuts, oily fish and seeds, and try where possible to avoid foods higher in saturated and trans fats. By doing this, you are at the least doing little harm to your health, and at best contributing to a healthier heart and brain.

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