To help reduce your risk of heart disease it is important to focus on decreasing the bad saturated fats in your diet while increasing the healthier unsaturated fats.
Shift your Focus
Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015 is shifting the focus on cholesterol and would like us to focus on saturated fat. The Dietary Guidelines Committee (DGAC) states, “previously, the dietary guidelines for Americans recommended that cholesterol intake be limited to no more than 300mg/day. The 2015 DGAC will not bring this recommendation forward because available evidences shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum (blood) cholesterol, consistent with American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology. Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.” (1)
To help reduce your risk of heart disease it is important to focus on decreasing the bad saturated fats in your diet while increasing the healthier unsaturated fats.
Saturated Fat and Sodium
These are 2 nutrients that are over consumed. The goal for general populations as per DGAC, sodium less than 2300mg/day, saturated fat less than 10% of total calories, and a max of 10% total calories from added sugars/day. (2)
To help reduce your risk of heart disease it is important to focus on decreasing the bad saturated fats in your diet while increasing the healthier unsaturated fats.
Sources of Saturated Fat
Fatty beef, butter, lard, cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, skin of poultry, heavy cream, whole and 2% milk, ribs, pork, lamb are all examples of saturated fat. When choosing dairy products such as cheese and milk, always choose low fat, reduced fat or fat free.
To help reduce your risk of heart disease it is important to focus on decreasing the bad saturated fats in your diet while increasing the healthier unsaturated fats.
Major Goals of DGAC 2015
- Balance calories with physical activity to manage weight;
- Consume more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat free and low fat dairy, and seafood; and
- Consume less foods with sodium, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, added sugars and refine grains.
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To help reduce your risk of heart disease it is important to focus on decreasing the bad saturated fats in your diet while increasing the healthier unsaturated fats.
Increase Plant Fats
Increase your monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, while decreasing your saturated fats. To do this, consume healthy plant fats such as olive oil, canola oil, peanut butter, walnuts, avocados, almonds; and also try to eat healthy omega-3 fats through fish like salmon, mackerel, and herring.
To help reduce your risk of heart disease it is important to focus on decreasing the bad saturated fats in your diet while increasing the healthier unsaturated fats.
Back to Basics
The message is clear and remains the same, choose more whole foods with less ingredients, and avoid highly processed, high sodium, and high fat foods. Remember even though cholesterol is no longer a concern, it is not a go ahead to eat bacon and hamburgers every day as these things would be high in saturated or bad fat.
