I posted this on another forum too in an attempt to get more responses cuz I am really curious about this topic. Sorry if you come across it twice though....One of the nutrition things I am the most confused about is fat b/c I have heard from dieticians and nutritionists that it really isn't bad for you...at least not those fats found in nuts or salad dressings and that they actually help to curb cravings and make you feel fuller. However, if this were true, why is there such an obsession with low fat and fat free products in our culture? Is it just b/c fat has more cals per gram than carbs or protein? And thus, I wonder if it is better to have regular salad dressing as opposed to low fat or fat free dressing which is what I currently use? Let me know...I'm very curious about this issue, and as a vegan, I have been told to eat a lot of nuts and peanut butter for protein, but I do worry about the fat content of these? Should I? Thanks, Alecia

fats that come from animal sources such as butter, whole milk, cheese, meat raise the bad cholesterol level...which can lead to heart disease and strokes...partially hydrogenated oils found in many products such as margarine and other products are extremely bad for you...worse than animal fat...some oils such as olive oil and canola oil are better than other fats because they raise the good cholesterol level...all fats have about the same calories..about 100 calories per tablespoon...we need some fat in our diets to carry the fat soluable vitamins and to keep us from getting hungry so soon etc..too much fat is a waste of calories in my opinion because they dont provide other nutrients than what i mentioned..you would be much better off to use your calories for protein (almost all protein has some fat in it anyway) or fruits or veggies or whole grains or non fat dairy if you use non fat dairy as a vegan...whether you use non fat dressing or reg dressing is up to you..i use non fat personally..like i said, i would rather use the calories somewhere else..some fat is good..too much fat isnt good..people who try to eat low fat do it on a percentage of their total calories and anything under 30% is considered low fat..we should be getting about 20-25% of our calories from fat on average...so i think as long as your total fat calories are not more than 30% of your total calories you shouldnt worry about fat from nuts or peanut butter...

Fat is getting more and more confusing by the day it seems!! Trans fats are REALLY bad - watch for partially hydrogenated in labels and STEER CLEAR!! Animal fats, butter, etc., is bad but it is still natural, therefore not as dangerous as trans fats, which are man-made. And fats like omega-3's and the fat in peanuts etc., those are actually supposed to HELP cholesterol levels! So good fat is fish like salmon and nuts, bad fat - really bad fat, is probably in a lot of the store bought things you purchase. Trans fats help retain shelf life in foods, which is why it's so popular in cookies, junk foods, etc.

Sigh. I"m getting myself confused now! Lol..:)

LOL Starr..
Here a fat there a fat everywhere a fat fat, oh Mc Donalds had a fat lol
I am trying to stay between 10-20 % . Dont always make it, buts its better than I have been doing............eating butter sandwiches LOL

This guy knows his stuff! http://www.udoerasmus.com/index.htm

I agree with what's been said above, but I do want to add my opinion that fat in general has been villified by our society in recent years and I personally don't feel this is warranted. Fat is very important and does helpful things for our bodies besides just providing nutrients and recent studies also suggest that adding more (good) fat to the diet aids in weight loss.

Just my :2 ! :)

so when you read nutrition info and it says saturated fat and monounsaturated and polyunsaturated...what does that mean?

Well..I think one of the things that jumped out at me when I read this is the fact that you do need fat things in your diet to mantain a healthy eating routine. But the fats you need are those fats such as nuts, olives, olive oil, avacados, etc. YOu need that stuff b/c you need a balance in your diet. That said...you can't eat McDonalds every day. The fat in there is different. Sure if you had a BigMac once a week and ate healthythe rest of the time you would be fine- b/c your body would be used to eating fats and a BigMac in the mis of a balanced diet would n't throw you off as much. I beleive that saturated fats at the ones that are really bad for you...all that stuff is harder for your body to break down than the fats in avacodos and oils...

Here is a good article about fat:

Can Fat be Good for You? (http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/fitness/fat.html)

In a nutshell saturated and trans fat should be avoided, especially trans fat (lowers good cholesterol and raises bad cholesterol). Unsaturated fats are the most beneficial fats to ingest since they are known to lower bad colesterol levels or raise good, whatever.

Saturated fats such as animal fat and fat from dairy products can and will raise your bad cholesterol. Unsaturated fats are things like olive oil/oils omega 3/6 fatty acids. These fats are good and should be the preference when having food that contains fat.

Trans and saturated fat molecules are "saturated" or nearly saturated with hydrogen atoms. Trans fat come from taking unsaturated fats and are then partially hydrogenated ie. add more hydrogen to saturate the fat molecule. This is done because the extra hydrogen raises fats melting points making them more stable at room temperature (ie. Solid fat at room temp. This is where the simple idea of "If the fat is solid at room temperature it will probably be a saturated or trans fat and avoid it"). A good example would be regular peanut butter vs. 100% natural peanut butter (unhydrogenated). When you look at a jar of regular peanut butter it never separates, this is because of the hydrogenated vegtable oil used. This oil will remain solid at room temperature because it is hydrogenated ie. a trans fat. The natural peanut butter will always separate from the oil used in it since the oil is unsaturated and is in a liquid form at room temperature.

Trans fats are useful because they're slightly softer than saturated fats (margerine vs. butter). And to the corporate machine (well aware that they'd have to list all saturated fats on the label) also sometimes opt to use trans fats instead so their products appear more healthy which do not yet need to be listed.

Originally posted by alecia2121
One of the nutrition things I am the most confused about is fat b/c I have heard from dieticians and nutritionists that it really isn't bad for you...at least not those fats found in nuts or salad dressings and that they actually help to curb cravings and make you feel fuller. However, if this were true, why is there such an obsession with low fat and fat free products in our culture?That's a rather loaded question, actually. There are several reasons. First, there are bad fats -- fats that in ANY quantities are just-plain-bad for you: saturated fats and trans-fat. Second, fat is the most calorie-dense food there is, so eating a lot of fat is the quickest way for your calorie intake to exceed your calorie expenditure, thereby causing weight gain which leads to obesity which leads to lots of bad things, like diabetes, heart disease, etc.

However, those are only the scientific reasons. There are perhaps more important reason, which are political and financial. The companies that sell the stuff (mostly refined carbohydrates) which people would eat less of if they ate more fat, are very powerful, and so they work very hard to make sure that the powers-that-be keep on trying to get people to limit their fat intake and keep their carbohydrate intake high.And thus, I wonder if it is better to have regular salad dressing as opposed to low fat or fat free dressing which is what I currently use?Yes and no. First, salad dressing is very hazardous waters... You can really jam a lot of calories into a small space in salad dressing, and indeed NON-fat salad dressing could have more calories than regular salad dressing.

However, luckily there are good, low calorie salad dressing that (1) have only good fats in them, (2) have relatively few calories per tablespoon, (3) don't make up the difference in taste with added sugar and fillers, (4) and still taste good!

Personally, I make my own: dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, a little salt and pepper and a touch of olive oil.

Originally posted by sooz
fats that come from animal sources such as butter, whole milk, cheese, meat raise the bad cholesterol level...which can lead to heart disease and strokes...Coconut oil and palm oil, also have a lot of saturated fat. We can't rely on the fact that a product is all vegetable to ensure low saturated fat content. :(partially hydrogenated oils found in many products such as margarine and other products are extremely bad for you...worse than animal fat...I believe that trans-fat can also be found from other sources, including good vegetable oils, when subjected to heat in the food production process, especially baking and frying.

Originally posted by amberc4614
so when you read nutrition info and it says saturated fat and monounsaturated and polyunsaturated...what does that mean? From the FDA web site:

There are three main types of fatty acids: saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. All fatty acids are chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached to the carbon atoms. A saturated fatty acid has the maximum possible number of hydrogen atoms attached to every carbon atom. It is therefore said to be "saturated" with hydrogen atoms, and all of the carbons are attached to each other with single bonds.

In some fatty acids, a pair of hydrogen atoms in the middle of a chain is missing, creating a gap that leaves two carbon atoms connected by a double bond rather than a single bond. Because the chain has fewer hydrogen atoms, it is said to be "unsaturated." A fatty acid with one double bond is called "monounsaturated" because it has one gap. Fatty acids having more than one gap are called "polyunsaturated."

...Usually the hydrogen atoms at a double bond are positioned on the same side of the carbon chain. However, partial hydrogenation reconfigures some double bonds and the hydrogen atoms end up on different sides of the chain. This type of configuration is called "trans" (means "across" in Latin)....


Aren't you glad you asked now? :)

From a cooking stand-point, open carbon atoms mean the fat can more easily spoil (go rancid), since other chemicals can latch onto the fatty-acid chain. So what's good from a cooking standpoint is bad from a health standpoint and vice versa. The best oils for you have to be refrigerated, and still go bad quickly.

Originally posted by EmilyRose
Want to know what the ironic thing is? Our ancestors (Great Great Grannys) never give a POO about fat. They didn't have LABELS, nor did they read all the "NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION."
They lived to be 70 - 80 -90- 100 years old. So what's up with that theory?What's up is that our ancestors worked their b*tt off. They didn't have cars to get them to and from where they needed to go. They didn't have machines to wash their clothes. Most every modern convenience we take for granted today translates into some significant amount of physical activity that THEY DID, and WE DON'T.

My wife related a similar scenario to yours from when she was growing up in the 50s and early 60s. However, she also relates how she and her brother had to walk 3 miles each way, each day to the spring to get drinking water, lugging the water back in heavy bottles. She relates how it was her job to clean the house, because Mamaw was busy working with the animals all day, milking the cow, etc.Have we become an Obssessive Nation? Afraid to eat, drink, eat?We've become a complacent, lazy, perhaps even slothful nation. I was the worst couch potato of them all a few years ago.We spend countless hours reading labels. It's enough to make anyone go crazy. That in itself is stressful.Such is the price for TiVo, MP3s, an week-long vacations of leisure.See how confusing this is? I agree with Alecia about all this being CONFUSING!It is confusing, especially because there is conflicting information being delivered from equally reliable sources. The reality is that we don't know enough to be able to know what the actual truth is with respect to much of this stuff, and instead of the medical community admitting that (because they can't because it would scare the general public to death to know they're comparatively clueless when it comes to nutrition and fitness, at least as it compared to more straight-forward things like broken bones and eyesight correction), they simply all advocate their preferred perspectives and (and this is the BAD part) bad-mouth any approaches they don't understand and/or don't like.

Sorry... I get riled up about stuff like this sometimes!

Yes, our ancestors did work awfully hard. We're spoiled rotton and sit on our butt's too much, I guess! Good point!