Choose healthy fats in 3 steps

Step 1: know what you eat

Choosing fat in a healthy way starts with realizing which foods contain fat. It is not only the butter, oil and mayonnaise that contain fat. To learn to recognize products that contain fat, it is smart to look at labels. On a label is a nutritional value per 100 grams and/or per serving. It always states how much fat a product contains. You may have never thought about it, but by reading labels, you will see that hummus contains fat, that cheese is high in fat, that olives also contain a lot of fat and that cookies are full of fat. And then there are a lot of products that usually don’t have a label. See this overview:

Step 2: Don’t scrap the fat

You need fat. Cutting fat from your diet is not healthy. Fat provides important fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamins A, D and E. Fats are also a source of essential fatty acids. These are the fats that your body needs for building cells, the production of hormones and enzymes. And another important function of fat: it ensures that you feel full for a longer period of time after a meal. You will feel hungry again after a meal without fat. Fat slows down the rate at which your stomach is emptied.

Types of fat

There are different types of fat: saturated fats, unsaturated fats and trans fats. And although the name suggests otherwise, this has nothing to do with a feeling of satiety. It is a classification based on the chemical structure of the molecules. Saturated fats are mainly found in animal products, such as meat, dairy and eggs. Unsaturated fats are mainly found in fish and vegetable products, such as oil and nuts. In general you hear: saturated fat is bad, unsaturated fat is good. But this is not a hard truth: there are more and more voices in science who say that one saturated fat is not the other and that saturated fat is not as bad as has always been thought. The last word has not yet been said. And then there are the trans fats. These occur naturally in small amounts in meat and dairy, but they are also found in fats that have been processed in the factory to become harder. Manufacturers find this useful for use in, for example, cookies and snacks. For example, a cheaper oil can still be used to make a firm cookie. Especially the processed trans fats are really unhealthy: they raise the cholesterol level in the blood. And that is unfavorable. There is agreement on that.

Step 3: Choose the best source

There is fat and fat: not all fats are the same (see: types of fats) and it is important to get especially the unsaturated fats. The label also provides information about this. There is a snag in the grass. Because almost every product contains a combination of different types of fat. For example, do you think you are doing well with a piece of mackerel on bread, because it contains 19 grams of unsaturated fat per 100 grams. That 100 grams of mackerel also provides you with 5 grams of saturated fat. So it gets pretty complicated. Fortunately, there is a more convenient way to make the right choice without delving into all those numbers. Choose mainly unprocessed, mainly vegetable and put fish on the menu every week. If you do that, the content of unsaturated fats in your diet is higher than that of the saturated fats. So choose healthy.

3a: Choose raw:

The less a product is processed, the less fats are added. Pastries, cookies, crisps, nuts, canned ragout, ready meals, sauces in packets and sachets: all these processed products contain fats. The manufacturer needs these fats in the production process to make the product tasty, durable and of the right consistency. The saturated fats and trans fats (see: types of fats) are particularly suitable for this. The more unprocessed your diet, the more unsaturated fats there are in your diet.

3b: Choose mainly vegetable

If we look at the fat composition of products, it is striking that plant-based foods mainly contain unsaturated fats (see: types of fats). The more vegetable products there are in your diet, the better the fat composition of your diet. That is also what the Health Council advises. Make sure your diet consists largely of vegetable products. High-fat vegetable products are, for example, seeds, nuts and oil.

3c: Eat fish every week

Fish is a positive exception of all animal products: the fats in fish are mainly of the unsaturated type. Fish also has the advantage that it contains the indispensable omega 3 fish fatty acids. Your body needs these fats just like vitamins. Especially fatty fish such as mackerel, salmon, herring and sardines are rich in these fish fatty acids. Are you mainly a meat eater or do you not like fish? Choose more often for game and chicken, which contain better fats than beef or pork.

In the table below a number of products with fat content and the percentage distribution of saturated and unsaturated fat. Ranked from highest percentage of unsaturated fat to lowest.