Plant-based fats prove heart-healthy
You've heard me talk in House Calls before about too many saturated fats increasing your risk of heart disease. But did you realize that eating just one meal high in saturated fat can actually impair the ability of your HDL "good" cholesterol to ward off blood vessel inflammation. And, to add insult to injury, saturated fats also hinder your blood vessels from reacting properly to stress.
The ability of your HDL (high-density lipoproteins) cholesterol to prevent inflammation in your blood vessels is imperative when it comes to warding off vascular disease. HDL actually works by carrying the bad form of cholesterol out of your arteries and back to your liver, where they're processed and excreted. So the higher your level of this "good" cholesterol, the lower your risk is for heart disease.
So what you want is polyunsaturated fat, which doesn't mess with your heart's health.
One study that was performed by scientists at the Heart Research Institute in Sydney, Australia showed how consuming single high-fat meals of different fat compositions affected the ability of HDL cholesterol to stop inflammation in large and small blood vessels.
To get the results, 14 adults ate a meal with 75 percent polyunsaturated fat on one occasion, and on a separate occasion, ate another meal with 89.6 percent saturated fat.
The researchers noticed that HDL cholesterol was less effective at preventing inflammation after the saturated fat meal than it was after the polyunsaturated meal. And, in fact, eating polyunsaturated fats actually enhanced HDL's ability to prevent inflammation.
So now you probably want to know which foods to eat for polyunsaturated fats, and which foods have all those saturated fats that you want to avoid.
Polyunsaturated fats are almost always plant-based, and the highest levels are usually found in corn, nuts, safflower, soybean, and sunflower oils. Saturated fats, on the other hand, are found mostly in animal products.
But don't let the healthier nature of polyunsaturated fats trick you into thinking they won't stick to your thighs and belly. These fats contain the same number of calories as saturated fat—they just don't clog your arteries quite so much.
However, like always, there were some important facts the study didn't go into.
First of all, you still need some saturated fats—the recommended amount is about 10 percent of your total calories (between 20 and 30 grams per day). Saturated fats are important for helping maintain the structural integrity and functioning of every cell in your body and play an important role in the synthesis of hormones. You just don't want to go overboard.
By the same token, not all polyunsaturated fats are good for you. The colorless, heat-processed vegetable oils you find on the shelves of supermarkets that come mostly from corn, soy and safflower—and also come with a host of problems. The main one is that, if eaten in excess, they promote oxidation in your body.
Stick with cold-processed, expeller-pressed vegetable oils and olive oils— especially the virgin olive oil I mentioned in yesterday's House Calls. Also, avoid the cheaper, colorless, heat-processed junk oils that can absolutely wreck you body.
