Consumer
Guide To Fat
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.
FDA recently issued new regulations that will enable consumers
to see clearly on a food product's label how much and what
kind of fat the product contains. (See "A Little Lite
Reading" in the June 1993 FDA Consumer.) Understanding
the terms used to discuss fat is crucial if you want to make
sure your diet is within recommended guidelines (see accompanying
article).
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