Your body needs a certain amount of healthy fats to function properly. Fats help insulate our organs, help regulate body temperature, give us healthy hair, skin and nails, support our immune system, and are the structural part of our cells. We need fat! However, not all fat is created equally. Some fats harm our body more then they help, so it’s important to be mindful of the fats we select.
So what is a healthy fat? A healthy fat is a monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, and omega 3 fatty acid. That includes things like avocado, olive oil, nuts & seeds, grass fed butter or ghee, salmon, chia seeds, avocado oil, nut butters, and eggs. These fats help keep our body functioning properly.
Unhealthy fats are saturated fat and trans fat. That includes things like margarine, whole fat milk products, red meat, pork, poultry skin, lamb, certain cooking oils, lard, and some highly processed foods. These foods can cause severe issue within your body and lead to problematic health issues.
Let’s talk about healthy oils you can cook with. There can be a lot of confusion regarding cooking oils. There are varying opinions on which oils are healthy and which are not, so I am going to give you my opinion based on what I have learned. The oils that you should have on hand and use are olive oil, avocado oil, grape seed oil, and ghee. I think coconut oil is acceptable occasionally, however, it is a saturated fat and should be used sparingly. It is also perfectly fine to cook without oil. You can use water or broth to cook with instead of oil. It works great, unless you want to fry something, but fried foods are not healthy anyways.
Some of the oils I feel you should avoid are vegetable, canola, peanut, soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, and corn oil.
Try adding healthy fat into your diet. Swap out highly processed, unhealthy fats, for whole, healthy fats. Use moderation, as even healthy fats can cause weight gain too.
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