Make Healthy Fats Part of Your Eating Pattern

Sometimes, it’s challenging to make changes in your diet. But here’s a simple approach to make your plate healthier: Focus on including more foods found in a Mediterranean-style dietary pattern—high in whole, plantbased foods and low in meat, sweets, and processed foods—and you’ll automatically be consuming more hearthealthy unsaturated fats and fewer artery-clogging saturated fats.

“Many people truly want to eat healthier, but it’s easy to get confused by all the dietary advice coming from different sources,” says Gabrielle Gambino, MS, RD, a senior clinical dietitian at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. “But when you consider the clinical evidence on what’s healthiest to eat, diets that are higher in plant foods and lower in animal-sourced foods are consistently linked with fewer health problems and lower risks of developing chronic diseases, like heart disease.”

Sources of Healthy Fats

Most of the healthy unsaturated fats are found in plant foods, including nuts, seeds, avocados, and oils made from these foods. And the majority of vegetable oils, including olive, canola, soybean, sunflower, and corn oils, are good sources of healthy fat.

Cold-water fatty fish, such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, and sardines, are other good sources of unsaturated fat.

“Diets higher in healthy fats are associated with lower risks of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and respiratory diseases, as well as cardiovascular disease,” Gambino says.

Unhealthy Fats

Many studies have found an association between diets high in saturated fat and an increased risk of many chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. Saturated fat is found primarily in animal-sourced foods, but it’s also present in a few plant products—so-called “tropical” oils, which include coconut, palm, and palm kernel oils.

The most common sources of saturated fat are whole-fat dairy products (cheese, whole milk, cream, butter, sour cream, and ice cream), red meat (beef, pork, and veal), and processed meat (cold cuts, bacon, sausage, hot dogs, salami). Most types of processed meats are also very high in sodium.

Make Smart Swaps

“The easiest, most convenient way to boost your consumption of healthy fats is to replace the foods in your diet that are high in saturated fat with foods that have a higher percentage of unsaturated fat and/or are rich in fiber,” advises Gambino. “For most people, this boils down to eating more vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, and eating less meat, full-fat dairy foods, sweets, and highly processed food products.”

When you’re making healthy swaps, it’s important to avoid replacing fats with high amounts of processed carbohydrates— for example, breads, crackers, and baked goods made with white flour, and candy, pastries, and desserts high in added sugar.

Healthier Eating

Here are some ways to boost your intake of healthy fats and cut back on unhealthy fats.

“Choose fish like salmon or tuna instead of pork chops or steak for dinner twice a week,” suggests Gambino. “When cooking, sauté foods in vegetable oil rather than butter, and use a vegetable oil-based spread instead of butter on your toast, bagel, baked potato, or dinner rolls.” Sprinkle sunflower, pumpkin, or sesame seeds instead of cheese and bacon on your salad, and snack on nuts rather than chips.

If you do eat meat, choose these extra-lean cuts: top sirloin steak, sirloin tip side steak, and eye of round, top round, and bottom round roast and steak. If you buy ground meat, make sure it is 93-percent fat-free. The best choice for chicken is skinless breast; poultry skin is loaded with saturated fat.

Another way to reduce your consumption of meat is to make meat a contributing part of the dish instead of the focal point of the meal. For example, instead of having a roast or chops, make stir-fries, stews, and casseroles that contain more vegetables than meat. Eating less meat might also lower your grocery costs.

Your cooking methods count, too. Bake, poach, boil, or sauté chicken or fish instead of frying. If you want a crunchy or crisp texture, try cooking lightly breaded fish or chicken in an air fryer.

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