What do healthy fats do?
Healthy fats are the building blocks for our sex hormones. They:
- help build our cell membranes
- give us a source of energy
- help us absorb nutrients
- insulate the body
- can help make us feel fuller
- give padding around our organs
From a health perspective, good fats can help lower our risk of heart disease by lowering the bad LDL levels and increasing the good HDL levels of cholesterol.
What is unsaturated versus saturated?
‘Good’ fats are unsaturated fats and they include the monounsaturated and the polyunsaturated fats.Basically, you will know if a fat is unsaturated because it is ‘liquid’ at room temperature. This would included olive oil. Butter, is mostly saturated because it is solid at room temperature.
Some examples of good fats are:
- olive oil
- coconut oil
- avocado
- fish
- flax seeds
- nuts
- grass fed beef
More great info can be found here:
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/nutrients/fats.html
Have a look at your diet. Are you getting some of these good fats in throughout your week? If you are, that’s great! If you are falling a tad short, don’t worry…just pick one new food at a time. Get used to incorporating that one new food into your weekly diet and when it becomes easier, pick another one!
Here is to happy and healthy eating!