Food & Recipes

Foods like cheese, butter, sausage, and desserts may taste good to you, but they can have a lot of saturated fat and cholesterol. Eating too much of these unhealthy fats could lead to high cholesterol and heart disease.

Start with small changes first. Use heart-healthy olive or canola oil instead of butter for cooking. Drink fat-free or low-fat milk instead of 2% milk or whole milk. Pick leaner cuts of meat.

Use this topic as a guide for making healthy choices.

Talk with your doctor

If you have questions about this information, print it out and take it with you when you visit your doctor. You may want to mark areas or make notes in the margins where you have questions.

Unhealthy fats

• Saturated fat. Saturated fats are mostly in animal foods, such as meat and dairy foods. Tropical oils, such as coconut oil, palm oil, and cocoa butter, are also saturated fats.
• Trans fat. Trans fats include shortening, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, and hydrogenated vegetable oils. Trans fats are made when a liquid fat is turned into a solid fat (for example, when corn oil is made into stick margarine). They are in many processed foods, such as cookies, crackers, and snack foods.
• Cholesterol. Cholesterol is only in animal products, such as eggs, dairy foods, and meats.

These unhealthy fats can raise your total cholesterol and your "bad" (LDL) cholesterol.

Healthy fats

• Monounsaturated fat. Monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature but get solid when refrigerated. Eating foods that are high in this fat may help lower your "bad" (LDL) cholesterol, raise your "good" (HDL) cholesterol, and lower your chances of getting heart disease. This fat is found in canola oil, olive oil, peanut oil, olives, avocados, nuts, and nut butters.
• Polyunsaturated fat. Polyunsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature. They are in safflower, sunflower, and corn oils. They are also the main fat in seafood. Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are types of polyunsaturated fat. Omega-3 fatty acids may lower your chances of getting heart disease. Fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel contain these healthy fatty acids. So do ground flaxseeds and flaxseed oil, soybeans, walnuts, and seeds.

Even though it's better to eat healthier fats, it's still important to be careful about how much of them you eat. All fats are high in calories, so watch your serving sizes.

Eating foods that contain saturated fats can raise the LDL ("bad") cholesterol in your blood. Having a high level of LDL cholesterol increases your chance of clogged arteries (atherosclerosis), which can lead to coronary artery disease and heart attack.

Trans fats also are unhealthy. Try as much as possible to avoid eating them. Trans fat raises the level of "bad" LDL cholesterol in your blood and lowers the "good" HDL cholesterol in your blood.

HDL cholesterol is important. It helps clear the bad cholesterol from your blood so it does not clog your arteries. A high level of HDL can lower your risk of having a heart attack.

Remember, your body needs some fat to be healthy. Use the example below as a guide for eating less saturated fat.

In general:

• No more than 10% of your daily calories should come from saturated fat. This is about 20 grams of fat in a 2,000-calorie diet.
• No more than 10% of your daily calories should come from polyunsaturated fat. This is about 20 grams in a 2,000-calorie diet.
• Monounsaturated fats can be up to 15% of your daily calories. This is about 25 to 30 grams in a 2,000-calorie diet.

If you're not sure how much fat you should be eating or how many calories you need each day to stay at a healthy weight, talk to a registered dietitian. He or she can help you create a plan that's right for you.

Use the following chart as a guide.

Tips for healthier meals

Try some of these ideas:

• Fill up on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
• Think of meat as a side dish instead of as the main part of your meal.
• Try main dishes that use whole wheat pasta, brown rice, dried beans, or vegetables.
• Use cooking methods with little or no fat, such as broiling, steaming, or grilling. Use cooking spray instead of oil. If you use oil, use a monounsaturated oil, such as canola or olive oil.
• Trim fat from meats before you cook them. Drain off fat after you brown the meat or while you are roasting it.
• Chill soups and stews after you cook them so that you can skim off the fat after it gets hard.
• To get more omega-3 fatty acids, have fish twice a week. Add ground flaxseed to cereal, soups, and smoothies. Sprinkle walnuts on salads.
• When you bake muffins or breads, replace part of the fat ingredient (oil, butter, margarine) with applesauce, or use canola oil instead of butter or shortening.
• Read food labels on canned, bottled, or packaged foods. Choose those with little saturated fat and no trans fat.

Restaurant meals

If you eat out often, it may be hard to avoid unhealthy fats. Try these tips:

• Order foods that are broiled or poached rather than fried or breaded. Restaurants often use trans fats (hydrogenated oils) for frying foods.
• Cut back on the amount of butter or margarine that you use on bread. Use small amounts of olive oil instead.
• Order sauces, gravies, and salad dressings on the side, and use only a little.
• When you order pasta, choose tomato sauce rather than cream sauce.
• Ask for salsa with a baked potato instead of sour cream, butter, cheese, or bacon.
• Don't upgrade your meal to a larger size.
• Watch portion sizes. Share an entree, or take part of your food home to eat as another meal. Share appetizers and desserts.

Fat-free foods

Sometimes a fat-free food isn't the best choice. Fat-free cookies, candies, chips, and frozen treats can still be high in sugar and calories. Some fat-free foods have more calories than regular ones. Eat fat-free foods in moderation, as you would other foods.

Now that you've learned what fats to cut first, you can make healthier choices for meals.