Often people that want to lose weight or lower their cholesterol tend to stay away from saturated fats. Since the inception of “low-fat” diets, the population has doubled in weight. Why is that? Because fats, saturated or unsaturated are essential to your existence.
The biggest problems with saturated fats are the same problem than with all foods…people tend to overeat! The human brain is about 60% saturated fat, so if you totally eliminate or greatly deplete saturated fats from your nutrition, you’ll find yourself stupider than normal. Of all the fats that you intake, 10% should be saturated and 90% unsaturated.
Whether you are trying to lose weight, lower your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, or simply want to be more heart healthy, minimizing foods high in saturated fats is a good idea. The one fat that you should be avoiding is trans-fat, which is found in some animal meats but also dangerously so in chemically processed foods.
Proteins High in Saturated Fats
Many animal products contain high amounts of saturated fats. Among those are:
- Beef
- Pork
- Bacon
- Lamb
- Processed meats
- Hot dogs
- Cold cuts
- Breakfast sausages
Besides the problem of overeating, most people are not educating themselves on the nutrients needed by the human body and the nutrient content of “real food.” Chemically processed foods, filled with added sugar, additives, preservatives, coloring, and bleach, have absolutely no nutritional value and are a danger to people’s health.
Although following a cholesterol-lowering diet does not ban you from eating animal meat entirely, consuming these products at every meal will be damaging to your health. Make sure you choose lean or extra lean meats and don’t consume red meat any more than once every four to five days. It takes the digestive system 3 days to digest red meat, so you shouldn’t overload your system with red meat. Make sure that the red meat you consume is organic, so it doesn’t contain hormones or other additives. As matter of fact you should eat only organic to minimize the intake of chemicals ingested through your foods.
Note: Lean meats contain less than 4.5 grams of saturated and trans fats per 100 grams, while extra-lean meats contain less than 2 grams of saturated fats and trans fats per 100 grams.
©Copyright – Hector Sectzer
