- Fat improves the way that flavor is released from food and sensed by the taste buds, and it imparts a creamy texture that's hard to mimic with other ingredients. It's no wonder that fat is a staple ingredient in many of our favorite foods.
- When you eat foods rich in fat, your digestive system sends signals to your brain that your appetite is satisfied. This actually makes eating a little fat an important part of smart weight loss dieting.
- Of all the food types, fat is the most calorie dense. So, when food is scarce, a diet rich in fat helps guarantee survival. However, it's easy to ingest a lot of fat calories very quickly, even when food is plentiful. This, along with the good taste of fat, helps to explain why Americans get on average about 40 percent of their daily calories from fat. Unfortunately, the recommended dietary calories from fat is about 30 percent. The disparity has lead to a population with increased health risk from heart disease, vascular disease, obesity and diabetes.
- Fat is digested more slowly than carbohydrates or protein. This means that calories from fat are available to the body over a long period of time. Low-fat diets are sometimes recommended for reducing risk of heart disease and for weight reduction. But people such as endurance athletes who need to maintain a very high level of physical performance may find that an extremely low fat diet results in energy depletion.
- Some fat soluble vitamins are available to the body only in dietary fat. Vitamins A, E and K are examples. Much of your daily vitamin D, another fat-soluble vitamin, probably also comes from fortified dietary sources. Nutrients from fat are extremely important for the development of brain and nerve tissues in infants and children. This is why a low-fat diet is almost never recommended for a child. However, it should be noted that most children in the Western world are not in danger of getting too little dietary fat.
- Saturated fats come from animals. These contain cholesterol that clogs blood vessels, so they should not constitute more than 10 percent of your daily calories. But other factors also affect how cholesterol behaves in the body, so the amount of saturated fat that you should consume could in fact be lower.
- Polyunsaturated and monosaturated fats come from plants and have no cholesterol. Monosaturated fats are considered especially healthy because they have a molecular structure that helps reduce harmful cholesterol levels. Though plant fats don't contribute directly to cardiovascular health problems, consumed in excess, they can cause weight gain, which increases heart health risks.
- Omega 3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fats found mostly in fish--salmon is a good example. When these fats make up a good portion of your recommended dietary fat, they're thought to benefit your heart by reducing harmful cholesterol.
- Trans fats are plant fats that have been modified by a process called hydrogenation. Hydrogenation causes liquid fats to be solid at room temperature, which is good for making margarine and peanut butter. But the unfortunate result of hydrogenation is that it makes fat molecules fit together is such a way that they clog blood vessels even more easily than saturated fats.
