The constant message we hear is to eat less fat. The message should more accurately be “eat less saturated and trans fat”. The eat less fat campaigns give the impression that all fat is bad, which simply is not true. There is “good” fat and “bad” fat and we should be eating less of the “bad” fat because it causes atherosclerosis (fatty buildup in artery walls) and thrombosis (blood clots).

Many nutritious foods contain a pretty fair amount of “healthy” fat, such as nuts, seeds, and avocado. These foods provide many nutrients and antioxidant chemicals that protect you from disease. It would be unwise to eliminate these from your diet.

There are three main types of fat found in food: saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. There is also another type of fat called trans fat, which occurs naturally and in processed foods.

Saturated fat is generally considered the “bad” fat because of its link to heart disease and some cancers. Saturated is an organic chemistry term meaning that each fatty acid is “saturated” with the maximum number of hydrogen atoms. It does NOT mean the food is saturated with fat. Saturated fat is usually solid at room temperature and is often added to commercial cakes, biscuits, pastries and fast-foods. It is encouraging to know that some fast-food franchises are working hard to lower their saturated fat content.

Monounsaturated means that one double bond exists between the carbon atoms in the fat, which entails dropping two hydrogen atoms. This type of fat is viewed favorably in health terms and doesn’t appear to contribute to future disease. Olive oil, canola oil and the avocado have put monounsaturated fat in the nutrition spotlight and have created a range of monounsaturated margarines. Nuts, seeds and lean meat also provide some monounsaturated fat.

Trans fat is made when manufacturers add hydrogen to vegetable oil--a process called hydrogenation. Hydrogenation increases the shelf life and flavor stability of foods containing these fats. Trans fat can be found in vegetable shortenings, some margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods, and other foods made with or fried in partially hydrogenated oils. A small amount of trans fat is found naturally, primarily in some animal-based foods like beef, lamb, mutton, milk, cheese.

Unlike other fats, trans fats are neither required nor beneficial for health. Eating trans fat increases the risk of coronary heart disease. For these reasons, health authorities worldwide recommend that consumption of trans fat be reduced to trace amounts. Trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils are generally considered to be more of a health risk than those occurring naturally.

Chemically, trans fats are made of the same building blocks as non-trans fats, but have a different shape. In trans fat molecules, the double bonds between carbon atoms (characteristic of all unsaturated fats) are in the trans (opposite corners) rather than the cis (both on the same side) configuration, resulting in a more straight rather than a kinked shape. As a result, trans fats are less fluid and have a higher melting point than the equivalent cis fats.

Trans fats are suspected of being linked to many other chronic health conditions, are tightly regulated in a few countries, mandatory on product labels in many others (now in the US), and are the central issue in several ongoing lawsuits (particularly against fast food outlets). Fortunately, many companies are voluntarily removing trans fats from their products, or establishing trans-free product lines so it should be less of a problem going forward.

We are often told that we should eat 20-30 grams of fat a day. Easier said than done! The average man eats more than 100 grams of fat every day, and the average woman, 70 grams of fat. It would take a tremendous change and restriction in eating habits to make it down to 20 grams a day. A more realistic goal would be 40 – 60 grams of fat.

Another bit of advice we are given is to avoid foods with more than 10 percent fat by weight (10g per 100 grams). This means you eliminate avocado, olive oil, nuts, peanut butter, seeds, polyunsaturated margarine (and good chocolate), none of which adversely affect the health of your heart or other parts of your body and can have nutritional qualities that actually improve your health.

Is this difficult to do? Not if you use the Nutripoints Program for Optimal Nutrition. Using this program you don’t have to count calories, read labels or try to figure out if the label is lying. Fats, cholesterol, calories, vitamins, minerals--26 positive and negative factors in foods are all available in one number--the Nutripoint score. See www.Nutripoints.com for more details.