Is your fat being threatened

A lot of people are aware that fat is one of the main reasons why there are so much obese and overweight people in the world today. That number is still rising. A person who intakes too much fat will have that fat stored in the fat cells in his or her system. Doctors say that the normal number of fat cells in an average person is about 50 billion. An obese person is thought to have twice as much fat cells. These fat cells are like storage tanks of energy that is supposed to be used sometimes later.

There are plenty of foods that contain fats and which people are consuming almost daily. Foods like butter, margarine, oils, nuts and oil seeds are only some of them. However, there are some good fats that can be found in fish oils, olive oil, canola oil, avocado and nuts. These oils have some very important fatty acids and because of that people older than 65 years are recommended to consume them because they drastically decrease the chance of having a heart attack. Apart from these, fats are also found in lard, animal shortening, coconut oil, palm oil, vegetable oil, butterfat, whole milk solids, chocolate chips and in a lot more products.

Types of fat

Every diet contains some fats. There are three types of fat and they are saturated fats, monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats.

Saturated fats can be found in animal products. Of all the fat types this one is considered to be doing the most damage. Too much cholesterol in the arteries is linked with saturated fats. Studies have confirmed that the intake of saturated fats heightens the amount of LDL cholesterol levels in the blood. Some of the foods that have this fat are eggs, meat, dairy, cakes and pastries.

Monounsaturated fats on the other hand reduce the amount of cholesterol and LDL levels. Olive oil, canola oil and peanut oil are some of the foods that are rich with this type of fat.

Polyunsaturated fats are helpful with the reduction of cholesterol but only if they are not taken in big quantities. For instance, vegetable oil and palm oil contain polyunsaturated fats.

A person should know that too much fat can be damaging to his or her health but he or she should also know that fat is important. Skin health, hormone production and the protection of some vital organs are all possible thanks to the fat. Fats have lots of calories and a person should intake no more than 20% of total calories from fat.

A person should make sure that he or she does not intake too much of the saturated fats. On the other hand, the intake of unsaturated fats should be increased.