When it comes to di­et, fats gen­er­al­ly get a bad rap.

For years, the world was con­vinced that re­mov­ing di­etary fats was the key to curb­ing cho­les­terol and keep­ing the heart healthy. But re­cent­ly, sci­en­tists have nar­rowed down on cer­tain fats, recog­nis­ing that there are dif­fer­ent types of fats, some of which are quite ben­e­fi­cial! Re­search is con­tin­u­ing to evolve on di­etary fat, but some facts are clear.

Not all fats are cre­at­ed equal

Some fats are bet­ter for you than oth­ers and may even help to pro­mote good health. Know­ing the dif­fer­ence can help you de­ter­mine which fats to avoid and which to eat in mod­er­a­tion.

Di­etary fat, al­so known as fat­ty acids, can be found in foods from both plants and an­i­mals. Fat is as es­sen­tial to your di­et as pro­tein and car­bo­hy­drates are in fu­elling your body with en­er­gy. Cer­tain bod­i­ly func­tions al­so re­ly on the pres­ence of fat. For ex­am­ple, some vi­t­a­mins re­quire fat in or­der to dis­solve in­to your blood­stream and pro­vide nu­tri­ents. How­ev­er, the ex­cess calo­ries from eat­ing too much fat of any type can lead to weight gain.

What are the less healthy fats?

Two types of fats — sat­u­rat­ed fat and trans fat — have been iden­ti­fied as po­ten­tial­ly harm­ful to your health. Most sat­u­rat­ed fats are an­i­mal fats. They’re found in high fat meats and dairy prod­ucts. Trans fat should be avoid­ed while sat­u­rat­ed fats should be eat­en very spar­ing­ly.

Sat­u­rat­ed fat sources in­clude:

fat­ty cuts of beef, pork and lamb

dark chick­en meat and poul­try skin

high fat dairy foods (whole milk, but­ter, cheese, sour cream, ice cream)

trop­i­cal oils (co­conut oil, palm oil, co­coa but­ter)

lard

Trans fat: Avoid when pos­si­ble

Short for “trans fat­ty acids,” trans fat ap­pears in foods that con­tain par­tial­ly hy­dro­genat­ed veg­etable oils. These are the un­health­i­est fats. You might find trans fat in:

fried foods (French fries, dough­nuts, deep-fried fast foods)

veg­etable short­en­ing

baked goods (cook­ies, cakes, pas­tries)

processed snack foods (crack­ers, mi­crowave pop­corn)

Like sat­u­rat­ed fat, trans fat can raise LDL (bad) cho­les­terol, al­so known as “bad” cho­les­terol. Trans fat can al­so sup­press HDL (good) cho­les­terol lev­els, or “good” cho­les­terol.

A 2018 re­view of 15 ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­als looked at sat­u­rat­ed fats and heart dis­ease. The re­searchers con­clud­ed that re­plac­ing sat­u­rat­ed fat in your di­et with polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fats can re­duce one's weight, al­so re­duc­ing your heart dis­ease risk.

“Just los­ing 10% of your body weight can al­so curb your risk of heart dis­ease” sug­gests Amer­i­can Heart As­so­ci­a­tion.

Foods with good fats

Doc­tors con­sid­er mo­noun­sat­u­rat­ed fat and polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fat more “heart-healthy” fats. Foods that pri­mar­i­ly con­tain these health­i­er fats tend to be liq­uid when they’re at room tem­per­a­ture. Re­search has con­sis­tent­ly shown that eat­ing foods that con­tain mo­noun­sat­u­rat­ed fat can im­prove your blood cho­les­terol lev­el and de­crease your risk for car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease.

Foods with Mo­noun­sat­u­rat­ed fat in­clude:

nuts (al­monds, cashews, peanuts, pecans)

veg­etable oils (olive oil, peanut oil)

peanut but­ter and al­mond but­ter

av­o­ca­do

Polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fat – Es­sen­tial Fats

Polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fats are known as “es­sen­tial fats” be­cause the body can­not make them and needs to get them from foods. Plant-based foods and oils are the pri­ma­ry source of this fat. Like mo­noun­sat­u­rat­ed fat, polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fat can de­crease your risk for heart dis­ease by low­er­ing blood cho­les­terol lev­els, ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Heart As­so­ci­a­tion.

A cer­tain type of this fat, called omega-3 fat­ty acids, has been shown to be par­tic­u­lar­ly ben­e­fi­cial for your heart. Omega-3s ap­pear to not on­ly de­crease the risk of coro­nary artery dis­ease, but they al­so help low­er blood pres­sure lev­els and guard against ir­reg­u­lar heart rates. The fol­low­ing types of foods con­tain omega-3 fat­ty acids:

Seafood – salmon, her­ring, sar­dines, trout

Nuts & seeds – wal­nuts, al­monds, flaxseed, chia seeds

canola oil

av­o­ca­dos

In ad­di­tion to omega-3 fat­ty acids, you can find polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fat in the fol­low­ing foods, which con­tain omega-6 fat­ty acids: to­fu, roast­ed soy­beans, wal­nuts, seeds (sun­flower seeds, pump­kin seeds, sesame seeds) and veg­etable oils (corn oil, saf­flower oil, sesame oil, sun­flower oil).

The bot­tom line

Health­i­er fats are an im­por­tant part of your di­et, but it’s still cru­cial to mod­er­ate your con­sump­tion of them be­cause all fats are high in calo­ries. It’s a good idea to in­cor­po­rate foods that con­tain mo­noun­sat­u­rat­ed and polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fats in­to your di­et. It’s a strat­e­gy that will help your heart and im­prove your qual­i­ty of life.