There are two main types of fat found in food – saturated and unsaturated. Eating a diet that is high in saturated fat can raise the level of cholesterol in your blood, over time.
This increases your chance of developing heart disease. So it’s a good idea to reduce your intake of saturated fat. You can do this by:
- eating less of foods that are high in saturated fat
- choosing options that are lower in saturated fat
- going for unsaturated fats instead of saturated
Most people in the UK eat too much saturated fat – about 20% more than the recommended maximum amount.
- The average man should have no more than 30g saturated fat a day.
- The average woman should have no more than 20g saturated fat a day.
- Children should have less saturated fat than adults.
Most people don’t have time to add up the amount of saturated fat they are eating every day. But it’s a good idea to take a look at how much saturated fat is in different foods. Then you’ll see that eating certain foods, especially in large quantities, can make it easy to eat more than the recommended maximum amount of saturated fat.
If you know which foods are high in saturated fat – and which are lower – then you can make choices each day to help reduce your intake of saturated fat.
Having some fat in our diet helps the body absorb some vitamins. Fat is a good source of energy and it provides essential fatty acids that the body can’t make itself.
But eating lots of fat can make you more likely to put on weight because foods that are high in fat are also high in energy (calories). And eating a diet that is high in saturated fat can raise the level of cholesterol in your blood, over time, which increases your chance of developing heart disease.
So it’s important to try to eat less fat and go for foods that are rich in unsaturated fats instead of saturated. You can find out more about the different types of fat in this section.
(this post extracted from Food Standards Agency at http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/fss/) SB.
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