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The Importance of Healthy Fats
Fats get an undeserving bad rap. While it’s true there are “bad” fats that are detrimental to your health, healthy fats play a crucial role for our health and wellness. Before we dive into the importance of healthy fats let’s talk about which fats are essential for our wellness and which fats we are better off avoiding.
Healthy Fats The Way Nature Intended
I could go into the typical scientific spheal about saturated fats, trans fats, omega 3s vs omega 6s and so on but that’s just not how my brain works. While I do think those things are important to know I prefer to simplify how I look at fats. I like to focus on fats that are God made and naturally occurring in nature.
Fats from plant sources like olives, avocados, nuts, and seeds and fats from animal sources like pasture raised meats, eggs, butter, tallow, or lard.
These are naturally occurring fats that with minimal processing are not only good for you but play a crucial role in your health and wellness.
Fats To Avoid
Conversely we have fats that are man made in a lab. While some of these fats might have started out as a plant they are so heavily processed and full of bioengineered ingredients (soy, corn, canola) that they no longer resemble the healthy fats that are found in nature.
These heavily processed fats are exposed to high heats that denature the fats making them extremely inflammatory and turning them into to carcinogens. They are often washed in a bleach or a hexane solvent which are highly toxic.
These heavily processed fats included margarine, and hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils like vegetable oil, canola oil, soybean oil, and other “seed” oils. If you start reading food labels you’ll find these types of fats in almost every packaged food, even organic or “health” foods will sometimes contain these oils.
It’s also important to know that even a healthy fats can be turned bad. As mentioned before part of what makes unhealthy fats bad for us is the high heat they are exposed to when processing them. High temperatures can denature certain fats, even healthy ones, making them inflammatory and carcinogenic. Olive oil is a good example. It’s important to know the smoke point for the different fats when using them for cooking and to choose fats with high smoke points like butter, tallow, or coconut oil. It’s also important to read labels and understand if a packaged food is made with olive or another fat that doesn’t have a high smoke point and that food was cooked at a high temperature as most packaged food is that fat is no longer a healthy fat.
There’s growing evidence that show these unhealthy fats are responsible for various cancers, heart disease, systematic inflammation throughout the body, and more. It’s extremely important that these harmful fats are avoided.
Our Bodies Need Fats
But! As the saying goes, Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Getting rid of fats all together is not the answer, because our bodies need fats in order to function. Instead focus on healthy fats found in nature and the way God intended, because they are absolutely essential for our health.
Our brain is out fattiest organ, and is 60% fat. A diet rich in healthy fats is crucial for brain development in babies and children. It’s especially important during pregnancy to ensure baby has healthy brain development in utero. Healthy fats are also essential for maintaining healthy brain function as we age. Healthy fats are also important for optimal cellular function. Just like our bodies need carbohydrates and protein in order to have optimal cellular function, our body also needs fat on a cellular level.
Fatty amino acids like Omega 3s can potentially help with a variety of health problems such as depression, anxiety, eye health, heart health, supporting healthy metabolic function, reducing inflammation, and more.
It’s plain to see just how important healthy fats are for our overall health and wellness. Just make sure your getting the right fats that are actually beneficial and not harmful to your health.