I will never forgive the diet industry for telling me potatoes were bad for me, once I stopped caring about fad shit and just eating at a deficit (including at least one baked potato a day) the pounds absolutely melted off.
It got me thinking about other foods that the government / diet companies have said are bad. Were trans fats actually a big problem? The ban certainly hasn’t done much for the obesity epidemic.
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Unsaturated fats are better than saturated fat, and trans fats are a subcategory of saturated fat that’s worse than usual. Unsaturated fats are things like fish, avocado, and olive oil. Saturated fats are things like red meat, dairy, and coconut oil. Trans fats are things like margarine, pastries, and fried food.
Fat(ty acid)s are broken down for energy, building cell walls, and maintaining cell function. They are absolutely necessary for survival just like carbs are. The way we categorize them and determine which ones are better for us is based off the molecular structure of the fatty acid. The names themselves refer to whether the carbon chain that makes up the fatty acid is at full capacity with hydrogen bonds (saturated) or if there are ‘gaps’ (unsaturated).
To be converted into energy and building components, the fatty acid needs to be broken down. Unsaturated fats are the easiest to do this because they’re already “bent” and that bend makes for an easy break point. Saturated fats are straight, making it more difficult for the enzymes to find a good breaking point. Trans fats aren’t just straight, they’re reinforced with a double bond. The harder it is to break a molecule down, the longer it just sits there in the body waiting its turn, taking up space.
If you want to read into the biology side of it, three terms that’ll help in searches is *lipids, triglycerides,* and *catabolism*.
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