Healthy fats

Healthy fats: what are they? Find out what its functions are and which foods are the richest in healthy fats, recommended for our body.

It is common to think that fats are bad for our health. However, this becomes a serious mistake, especially when the person does not consume the recommended daily amount of fat.

Unlike what many people tend to think, the truth is that fats are an essential nutrient for our body, as important as proteins and carbohydrates, since they are essential to fulfill certain functions of our body, such as are:

• Build cell membranes, nervous tissue, and hormones.
• Its use by our body as energy or fuel.
• They provide essential fatty acids, which are involved in child development and growth.
• They help transport and digest vitamins A, D, E, and K.
• Fatty acids are involved in blood clotting or in the regulation and control of blood pressure.

Therefore, it is essential to be clear that fats are essential for our body, but obviously it is not worth consuming any type of fat, just as it is not healthy to choose any food rich in fat, since nutritionally speaking its virtues or negative effects are not will be the same.

What are healthy fats?

Healthy fats are those that belong to the group called unsaturated fats. These types of fats are fats in their pure state, which means that they have not been previously transformed by any other organism or industrial process, so that they are available so that our body can transform them and take advantage of them according to their needs.

Where do we find healthy fats?

We find healthy fats in foods of plant origin, such as olive oil, or also in fish. When it comes to vegetable oils, we can find unsaturated fats in avocado, soy, sunflower or corn oil.

Although generally meats are rich in saturated fat (a less recommended type of fat), chicken or rabbit meat are rich in unsaturated fat.

Here we help you discover where to find healthy fats:

• Vegetable oils: such as virgin olive oil, or sunflower, soy, corn or peanut oils.
• Fruits: avocado stands out above all, rich in oleic acid.
• Fish: oily fish stands out especially, especially rich in omega-3 fatty acids.
• Certain meats: especially those considered as white meats, such as chicken or rabbit meat.

Benefits of healthy fats

Consumed in a moderate way, we must not forget that fats are essential for the proper functioning of our body, since they perform certain functions and participate in many others every day.

Following a diet rich in healthy fats helps us avoid cardiovascular diseases, mainly due to its purifying virtues of the blood, which is why they are so recommended fats in case of high cholesterol levels or high triglycerides.

In summary, the main properties of healthy fats are the following:

• They help prevent and avoid cardiovascular diseases.
• They purify the blood, reducing the levels of cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood.
• They help reduce and control blood pressure.
• They reduce the risk of heart attacks.
• They regulate our body avoiding eating disorders such as overweight or obesity.