Diabetes Diet Fat Types, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Food Types Explained - Fats
Almost everyone can agree that too much fat in a diet is bad for you. Most dieticians agree that the maximum fat content in a diet should be 30%. Of course this is a total fat figure, there are several different types of fat, you should eat more of the fat types that are less harmful and this is described below.
Cholesterol
Cholesterol is associated with heart disease, coronary artery disease and vascular disease. The generally recommended guideline is that no more than 300 milligrams a day of cholesterol should be consumed. Cholesterol actually comes in two main forms Low and High Density Lipoprotein, "LDL" and "HDL". LDL is damaging, as it can slowly build up on the artery walls, eventually clogging them. HDL is actually good and appears to protect against heart disease by carrying bad cholesterol away from arteries to be processed and expelled from the body by the liver. Type 2 Diabetics are at a raised risk of Heart Disease, so checking your Cholesterol levels and making sure you eat the right type of cholesterol is especially important.
Saturated (Animal) Fat
Saturated fat are those derived from animals. These include diary products like butter, cream cheese, cream and all milk derived products and also the fat found in bacon, steaks and any other meat. Eating a lot of saturated fat causes an increase in your cholesterol levels including the type that is most damaging to your heart. Of the maximum 30% of your diet that can be fat, saturated fat should be less than 10% for a healthy balance.
Unsaturated (Vegetable) Fat
As the title suggests, this fat type is derived from vegetables rather than animals, it comes in two groups, Mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated. Typical sources are vegetable or olive oil, nuts and margarine.
- Monounsaturated This is the least dangerous fat form as it does not raise your cholesterol levels. Good sources include Olive oil, peanuts, almonds and avocado. You should try and make monounsaturated fat the largest portion of all the fat types that you eat, aiming to have half of all your fat intake as monounsaturated.
- Polyunsaturated As with monounsaturated, polyunsaturated does not directly raise your cholesterol levels, but unlike monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat can reduce the good form of cholesterol (HDL). Because of this negative effect, the amount of polyunsaturated fat should be reduced to less than 10% of your diet (like saturated fat).
Easy changes
As with other diet choices, eating the right types of fat has benefits for all, diabetics and non diabetics alike, so change everyone's meals:
- Change from butter to olive oil based margarine (or other monounsaturated)
- Change cream to vegetable alternatives
- Use reduced fat milk
- Use olive oil (sparingly) for cooking instead of polyunsaturated rich oils
- Lean meat cuts
- Cut down on fatty burgers and sausages
Now find out about protein. The best sources for you health.
More Resources
[ www.lifeclinic.com ]
[ www.mayoclinic.com ]
[ www.webmd.com ]
[ www.ediets.com/diabetes
]
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Pages in this section...
[ Diet ] [ Ideal Weight ] [ Food ] [ Carbohydrate Content ] [ GI explained ] [ Fats ] [ Protein ] [ Vitamins & Minerals ] [ Losing Weight ] [ Summary ]
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