In the first two installments of this series, I talked about carbs and protein. I discussed the fact that most of us get our carbs and proteins from the wrong sources – refined foods, fatty meats. In the case of fats, we not only consume too much, we consume the wrong kinds of fats.
In general, fats should make up only 10-30 percent of your total calories each day. That’s about 20-70 grams of fat in a typical 2,000 calorie-a-day diet.
The first problem: many people get more than a third of their calories from fat. The second problem: most of the fats are the wrong kinds of fats:
- Saturated fats, primarily from animal products like meat and dairy, which elevate your ‘bad’ (LDL) cholesterol.
- Trans fats, which are man-made fats added to processed foods. They not only elevate bad cholesterol, they also lower your ‘good’ (HDL) cholesterol.
Instead of saturated and trans fats, we should be consuming these good fats:
- Polyunsaturated fats, such as the Omega-3 oil in soybeans, tofu, walnuts, flaxseed oil, and certain coldwater fish like salmon, tuna, sardines and mackerel. (Another polyunsaturated oil, Omega-6 – found in poultry as well as corn, sunflower, cottonseed and safflower oils – is not as beneficial and should be limited.)
- Monounsaturated fats, from oils such as olive, canola and flaxseed, as well as from avocados. These fats actually lower your bad cholesterol.
In general, you should try to limit saturated fats and avoid trans fats altogether.
Dr. Mike
About mparkinson
Dr. Mike, EVP and Chief Health and Medical Officer, is responsible for the strategic direction and health care management at Lumenos. Formerly Director of Medical Programs and Resources for the U.S. Air Force, he was responsible for policy and planning for the Medical Service with over 2 million beneficiaries, 70 facilities and a $4 billion budget. A retired colonel, he served as deputy director of Air Force Medical Operations and chief of preventive medicine. He is President-Elect of the American College of Preventive Medicine and a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee reviewing NASA prevention programs, the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board. Mike is a recipient of the Air Force Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Service Award of the American College of Preventive Medicine and Distinguished Recent Graduate Award from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He received his A.B. from Cornell University, M.D. from George Washington University, family practice training at the UCLA and his M.P.H., preventive medicine residency and chief residency at the Johns Hopkins University.