The DASH Diet Mediterranean Solution: The Best Eating Plan to Control Your Weight and Improve Your Health for Life (A DASH Diet Book)

by Marla Heller

What Kinds of Fats Should You Definitely Avoid or Limit? Saturated and trans fats. Saturated fats are the building blocks for making cholesterol in the body. (Even trendy coconut oil, so heavily promoted and propped up by industry-paid research, can cause increased cholesterol.) Trans fats have been identified as bad actors when it comes to heart disease. They are polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) that have been converted into a more saturated form and, unfortunately, have been found to act as if they were SFA. Up until a few years ago, they were in common use to make processed foods that needed to be crispy or crunchy. But now they have been removed from most foods. Unfortunately, in many cases, the foods were reformulated, trans fats having been replaced with saturated fats from palm oil or coconut oil. Those fats are just as bad. The easy way to avoid these fats is to reduce your intake of processed foods. When you make your own meals, you control what goes into it. Saturated fats also trigger inflammation by activating inflammatory cells.2 Inflammation, as we have discussed, is associated with increased risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure as well as rheumatoid arthritis, suppressed immune function, and accelerated aging.