About Me

Note from Maria: I am a Registered Dietitian with a Master of Public Health Degree in Nutrition from UNC at Chapel Hill. I have a passion for helping people with nutrition & wellness, especially moms. Women & moms provide care for everyone else often at the expense of considering their own needs. I hope to provide good resources to you to help you make nutrition and wellness a priority.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

More about fat......

Today lets focus on saturated fats. These fats are found mostly animal products such as meat and dairy. Limiting saturated fat is important to maintain good health. You can do this by eating less meat and dairy and choosing low fat dairy and lean meat products when you do.You can also read food labels, saturated fat is listed on the nutrition info panel. You should have less than 10% of your total calories from saturated fat. For example if you eat 1800 calories/day, you should have less than 20 grams of saturated fat per day. Less is better. (1800 calories/day x 10% /9 calories/gram of fat = 20).

Consuming excess saturated fat is associated with increased LDL or the bad "cholesterol". LDL stands for low density lipoprotein.  LDL contains cholesterol and fatty substances including saturated fat. LDL is the substance the that becomes plaque in arteries. Plaque in arteries is bad because it this leads to diseased arteries, heart attacks and strokes

This is a very simple explanation of why saturated fat is bad and how it is associated with increased LDL.  I hope this helps you understand why it is important to limit saturated fats.

Here is additional info........

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