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88 Part II: Enjoying Total-Body Health: Eating Well and Staying Injury-Free

Trans fats

These artery-clogging fats may be just as harmful as saturated fats; they’re

created through hydrogenation,a process that turns liquid oils into solids like

margarine and shortening. Hydrogenation makes pie crusts flakier and french

fries crispier. (Thanks to their trans fat, McDonald’s french fries have roughly

as much artery-clogging fat as if they were fried in lard.)

Chips, crackers, cookies (yes, even low-fat cookies), granola bars, pastries,

microwave popcorn, many types of bread, many cereals, and many peanut

butters often contain trans fats. Look for the words hydrogenatedor partially

hydrogenatedon labels and avoid those products that use hydrogenated oils,

especially when near the top of the list. Keep reading labels and don’t give up:

For every ten cereals or microwave popcorn products that have trans fat,

you can find one that doesn’t.

Unsaturated fat

All right, now we’re getting to the fats that may actually be good for your

health. Unsaturated fat is the kind found in foods such as:

Avocados

Canola and flaxseed oils

Fatty fish, such as salmon and mackerel

Nuts and seeds

Peanuts and “natural” peanut butter (the kind made only from peanuts

and salt, as opposed to the processed kinds, like Jif and Skippy, which

have hydrogenated fats, mentioned in the preceding section)

Olives and olive oil

Unsaturated fats fall into two categories: mono and poly. Olive and canola

oils are predominantly monounsaturated, as are peanut butter and avocado.

Corn, soybean, safflower, and sunflower oils are mainly polyunsaturated.

The evidence is strong that monounsaturated fats may help protect against

heart disease by reducing levels of LDL cholesterol (the artery-clogging kind)

without affecting HDL cholesterol (the kind that acts as a vacuum cleaner

within your bloodstream). There’s less of a consensus about polyunsaturated

fats, but you want to eat a balance of both.

So how much fat is it okay to eat? .....................................................

That’s debatable. Most major health organizations recommend keeping your

total fat intake to less than 30 percent of your total calories (about 66 fat grams

per day if you eat 2,000 calories). However, the 30 percent figure is not backed