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A Consumer's Guide to Fats
by Eleanor Mayfield
Once
upon a time, we didn't know anything about fat except that it made foods
tastier. We cooked our food in lard or shortening. We spread butter on
our breakfast toast and plopped sour cream on our baked potatoes. Farmers
bred their animals to produce milk with high butterfat content and meat
"marbled" with fat because that was what most people wanted to eat.
But
ever since word got out that diets high in fat are related to heart disease,
things have become more complicated. Experts tell us there are several
different kinds of fat, some of them worse for us than others. In addition
to saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, there are triglycerides,
trans fatty acids, and omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids.
Most
people have learned something about cholesterol, and many of us have been
to the doctor for a blood test to learn our cholesterol "number." Now,
however, it turns out that there's more than one kind of cholesterol,
too.
Almost
every day there are newspaper reports of new studies or recommendations
about what to eat or what not to eat: Lard is bad, olive oil is good,
margarine is better for you than butter--then again, maybe it's not.
Amid the welter of
confusing terms and conflicting details, consumers are
often baffled about how to improve their diets. Clearly,
though, consumers are interested in obtaining this information.
In a poll conducted by Nielsen Marketing Research, people
were asked to select the food qualities that were "very
important" to them, and knowing which foods were low in
fat and cholesterol ranked highest:
Percentage of
people who said these food qualities were "very important"
to them:
|
| low
caffeine |
31.2% |
| low
calorie |
38.2% |
| low
sodium |
41.3% |
| low
fat/cholesterol |
58.6% |
FDA regulations enable
consumers to see clearly on a food product's label how
much and what kind of fat the product contains. Understanding
the terms used to discuss fat is crucial if you want to
make sure your diet is within recommended guidelines.
Triglycerides and
VLDL
Triglyceride is another
form in which fat is transported through the blood to
the body tissues. Most of the body's stored fat is in
the form of triglycerides. Another lipoprotein--very low-density
lipoprotein, or VLDL--has the job of carrying triglycerides
in the blood. NHLBI considers a triglyceride level below
200 mg/dl to be normal.
It is not clear whether
high levels of triglycerides alone increase an individual's
risk of heart disease. However, they may be an important
clue that someone is at risk of heart disease for other
reasons. Many people who have elevated triglycerides also
have high LDL-cholesterol or low HDL-cholesterol. People
with diabetes or kidney disease--two conditions that increase
the risk of heart disease--are also prone to high triglycerides.
Food and Drug Administration
Publication No. (FDA) 99-2286
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