Are You Eating the WRONG Fats? The Surprising Truth About What Your Body Actually Needs

Smart Health Key 6/12 – Target Good Fats and Nutrient-Dense Foods

If you're trying to lower your cholesterol, improve your blood pressure, manage your blood sugar, lose weight, or simply feel healthier, you may be spending far too much time thinking about what you shouldn't eat...

No sugar. No fat. No carbs. No this. No that.

But here's a much more useful question: What should you be eating more of?

Because healthy eating isn't just about avoiding foods that can harm your health, it's also about deliberately choosing foods that give your body the nutrients it needs to function well.

That's why, when it comes to improving your long-term health, you should specifically target foods that are rich in:

• healthy fats, like

• omega-3 fatty acids,

• monounsaturated fats (MUFAs),

• vitamins (and minerals),

• fibre, and

• phytonutrients

These are the foods that can make a major contribution to your health — and they're the foods you want to build your diet around.

The foods you should actively target

Some of the foods you should aim to include regularly are:

• All vegetables and herbs (preferably fresh)

• All legumes or pulses (beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas, etc.)

• All fruits (preferably fresh)

• Dairy products, preferably lower fat

• Nuts (and seeds), in smallish portions

• Avocado and olives

• Anchovies, salmon, pilchards, sardines, trout and mackerel (preferably not smoked)

• Intact whole grains

• Water

This is not a comprehensive list, but these foods will contribute to your health 99% of the time - that's why you need to target them.

Instead of constantly asking yourself, "What am I not allowed to eat?", start asking: "What can I add to this meal that will actually help my body?"

That shift in focus can make healthy eating feel a whole lot less like restriction — and a whole lot more like nourishment.

Not all fats are created equal

One of the most important things to understand about healthy fats is that the type of fat you eat matters.

All the cell membranes in your body are made up of the fats you eat. Harmful trans fats and saturated fats make your cell membranes more rigid, predisposing you to lifestyle diseases. They also clog up arteries, increasing your risk for a heart attack or stroke. Unsaturated fats, on the other hand, help your cell membranes function better, open up arteries and reduce your risk of lifestyle diseases.

This is one reason the Mediterranean diet is so highly regarded.

Around 25–35% of its energy comes from fat, but that fat comes mainly from healthy monounsaturated fats (MUFAs) and omega-3 polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), with very little saturated fat.

Fat can broadly be divided into:

• Saturated and trans fats — the detrimental fats you want to limit

• Monounsaturated fats (MUFAs) — beneficial fats found in foods like nuts, avocado, olives, olive oil and canola oil

• Polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) — which include omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids

There's also a common misconception that all omega-6 fats are bad for you.

They're not.

The balance between omega-3 and omega-6 is important.

The problem is that many people eat very little omega-3-rich food — such as salmon, pilchards, mackerel, trout and other fatty fish — while consuming plenty of omega-6-rich foods.

Adding a portion of fatty fish or a quality omega-3 supplement every day can help correct this imbalance.

Why MUFAs deserve a place on your plate

Monounsaturated fats (MUFAs) are found in foods such as:

• Nuts

• Nut butters

• Avocado

• Olives

• Olive oil

• Canola oil

MUFAs are important because they can help keep harmful LDL cholesterol levels down while elevating beneficial HDL cholesterol.

If you want to understand more about dietary fats and how they function in metabolism, you'll find comprehensive information in the updated SA Fat and Protein Guide by Prof. Nola Dippenaar and Liesbet Delport.

Now let's talk about which foods to limit

Of course, there are also foods that you want to avoid or limit. These foods tend to be loaded with kilojoules but provide very little nutritional value.

They don't give your body much of what it needs to function well and rejuvenate itself. Instead, they can interfere negatively with the way your body functions.

Again, this isn't a comprehensive list, but these are some of the most common offenders:

1. Confectionery and baked treats

Confectionery is usually high in saturated and often trans fats, coming from the butter and/or hard margarine contained therein. The cakes, pastries and other treats in bakeries and supermarkets may look delicious, but there are very few genuinely healthy confectionery options, unless made with olive or Canola oil.

2. The visible fat on meat and poultry skin

The fat on beef, lamb and mutton, pork, as well as the skin of chicken and other poultry, should ideally be removed before cooking, while replacing it with a healthy alternative like cooking with olive or Canola oil or using avocado or nuts in your meal or snack. Unless you've been roaming the polar regions of the globe, your body doesn't need these extra fat stores 😉

3. Processed meats

Foods like bully beef, polony and most sausages, including dried wors and russins may contain some useful protein, but the amount of fat — most of it unhealthy — can outweigh the nutritional benefit. Overall, you're better off leaving these foods off your regular menu.

4. Energy drinks and sugary soft drinks

Energy drinks can be useful for athletes and sports enthusiasts during and after training or competing. But for inactive people, they're a very different story.

Sugar-containing soft drinks and cordials are also higher-GI and can put unnecessary strain on your body's blood glucose regulation. If you're drinking these simply because you're thirsty, it's a habit worth breaking.

5. Takeaway and restaurant meals

Takeaway meals are, 99% of the time, loaded with unhealthy fats and low in phytonutrients (as vegetables or salad usually shine in their absence or are used merely as garnish) and provide very little nutritional value for the kilojoules they contain.

Restaurant and takeaway portions are also often at least double the size of a typical home-cooked meal, while being relatively low in the nutrients your body actually needs.

6. Potato and other crisps

Crisps are high in salt, unhealthy fats, kilojoules and often GI as well. Eating them regularly is a habit that can steer you towards health problems over time.

7. Sweets and chocolates

These are also usually very high in kilojoules while offering relatively little nutritional value.

8.Butter, hard margarine and coconut oil, coconut cream and coconut milk

Most people think butter is healthy, as it is natural. They use the same reasoning for coconut products. However, butter and all coconut products are very high in saturated fats.

Thus, try to replace butter or hard margarine on bread with one of the healthier options of avocado or nut butter. Replace butter or hard margarine in baking with a healthier oil like olive, Canola or Macadamia oil and also use one of the latter in cooking, rather than using coconut oil. Use Lite Coconut milk or Lite coconut milk mixed 50:50 with fat free milk in recipes rather than coconut milk or even worse, coconut cream. We used this 50:50 mix in our Thai chicken and vegetable curry recipe in Eating for Sustained Energy 2 by Gabi Steenkamp and Liesbet Delport.

Here's the trick: Stop focusing on what you're trying to avoid

There's an interesting principle in behaviour change that can help you break unhealthy eating patterns.

Instead of constantly thinking:

"I shouldn't have that chocolate."

"I'm not allowed to eat those crisps."

"I really shouldn't be eating this cake."

Think about what you CAN eat instead.

Think about strawberries.

Fresh popcorn.

Dried fruit.

Nuts OR

Make one of the cakes or treats from one of the Eating for Sustained Energy recipe books. All the recipes are lower GI, lower in bad fats and higher in fibre and therefore more filling and self-limiting. Also obtain Eat Smart and Stay Slim: the GI diet from www.gifoundation.com and read the chapter: Learn to compensate.

Think about all the different varieties and flavours available to you.

Brazil nuts have a wonderfully smoky flavour.

Peanuts are classic and nostalgic.

Cashews are deliciously creamy. Then you've got macadamias, pecans and so many more.

The more you focus on the good foods you can enjoy, the less mental space you give to the foods you're trying to avoid. That's a much easier way to change your eating habits for good. Because the goal isn't to spend the rest of your life feeling deprived and thinking about everything you can't eat.

The goal is to build a habit of naturally reaching for the foods that nourish your body.

Scientific References:

Buettner D (2008): The Blue Zones: lessons for living longer from the people who’ve lived the longest. The National Geographic Society.

Craig, WJ (1997): Phytochemicals:guardians of our health. J Am Dietetic Assoc, 97 (10 Suppl 2): S199 – S204.

Haag M and Dippenaar NG (2005): Dietary fats, fatty acids and insulin resistance: short review of a multifaceted connection. Med Sci Monit, 11(12): RA359 – 367. Dietary Fats, Fatty Acids and IR – Haag, Dippenaar, FattyAcidsandIR-Haag,Dippenaar.pdf

Margioris AN (2009): Fatty acids and postprandial inflammation, Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care, 12: 129 -137.

Recommendations of the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Insitute for Cancer Research. Food, Nutrition, Physical activity and the Prevention of Cancer. 2007

Rossouw JE (2015): The diet-heart hypothesis, obesity and diabetes. S Afr J Clin Nutr, 28(1):38-43.

AUTHOR: ELIZABETH (LIESBET) DELPORT - Registered Dietitian, M.Sc. Dietetics.

Liesbet Delport has over 40 years of experience helping over 10,000 people improve their health through practical, evidence-based nutrition.

After struggling with her own weight as a teenager, Liesbet learned that lasting health isn't about willpower or another restrictive diet. Her approach is simple: people aren't failing, the diets are. She helps people build a balanced, delicious way of eating they can actually follow for life.