Quick Bites Nutrition • Issue 4
Welcome to the 4th issue of Quick Bites, my New Nutrition Newsletter! Today I will give you a couple tools to make healthier food choices. Let’s dig in! - Trilety
This week is all about Lipids, otherwise known as fats!
While fats are essential for our bodies, we need the right amount and the right kind of fats. Our bodies have an UNLIMITED capacity to store fat. . . which is why it’s up to us to LIMIT our fat intake.
HOW MUCH FAT?
For a normally healthy person, about 20-30% of your total calories should come from fat. But how much is that? Here’s a nifty table to help you keep track of how much fat you should be consuming per day:
You don’t have to commit to being a calorie counter, but take a look every once in a while at the nutritional labels of the foods you’re consuming and compare it to the fat grams in the table above.
WHAT KIND OF FAT?
Trans Fats - (eat little to none): If a nutrition label says it contains “trans fats” or “partially hydrogenated oil," then find a substitute because artificial trans fats are the worst. They raise your LDL (what’s considered “lousy” cholesterol) and lower your HDL (what’s considered your “happy” cholesterol).
One way to eat fewer trans fats is to reduce your consumption of packaged foods and increase your intake of fruits and vegetables.
Saturated fats - (limit intake): These are the solid fats that usually come from animal products, though coconut oil also contains saturated fat - so be aware, vegans! Examples of saturated fats include: butter, cheese, whole and 2% dairy products, poultry with skin, fatty beef, cream, ice cream, chocolate, palm oils, shortening, and coconut oil.
These are the fats you want to LIMIT - usually taking in no more than 13 to 20 grams of saturated fat a day. Saturated fats increase your body cholesterol even more than cholesterol containing foods do - so pay attention to your saturated fat intake!
Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) - (HEALTHIER): These include Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids*. You should get a higher ratio of Omega 3 foods in comparison to Omega 6 foods, and you can do this by consuming more: flaxseed oil, canola oil, chia seeds, walnuts, cold water fatty fish (salmon, mackerel, tuna, herring, sardines), and grass-fed beef.
Omega 6 fats are found in corn oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and non hydrogenated margarine.
Check out this fact sheet from the National Institutes of Health on Omega 3 Fatty Acids - it’s in depth and detailed if you’re into digging deeper into the science!
Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) - (HEALTHIER): The best fats for your health, in MODERATION. These oils are usually liquid at room temperature, vs saturated fats which are usually solid.
REPLACE your saturated fats with MUFAS such as: avocado, nuts (almond crashes macadamia pecans pistachios), canola oil , olive oil , sesame oil, olives, sesame seeds, and peanut butter.
Check out this easy graphic from the American Heart Association!
TRANS & CIS
I was super interested while reading about lipids that “cis” and “trans” were words related to chemical configurations and basically mean “on the near side” or “far/other side,” of. I’d only heard those words in relation to gender identity, ie I’m a “cis” woman, meaning my gender identity matches that which I was assigned at birth, and my cousin is a “trans” woman, meaning a woman who was assigned male at birth.
I sent this to a couple of my girlfriends, and one of them (Katie) replied, “Cis and trans are isomers of the same molecule. Those prefixes were borrowed from chemistry and one of the reasons is because in chemistry neither cis or trans is considered better or worse than the other - they are just different.”
Being a huge etymology nerd, this was really fun to see how many commonalities we can find through words.
RECIPE!!
Did you notice all the sesame included in the list of healthy MUFAs? This week's recipe is all about sesame!
Tonight for dinner, I soaked brown rice noodles (whole grain!) in hot water for 8 minutes, then added the noodles to a skillet with SESAME oil and chopped bok choy and garlic.
After sauteeing for a couple of minutes, I added a couple of Tablespoons of tahini (SESAME paste) and a little low sodium soy sauce.
Once the bok choy was wilted and tahini coated the noodles, I piled it into a bowl with fresh tomatoes, salt/pepper, and crushed SESAME seeds!
And it only took 15 minutes!
It's a quick version of this amazing recipe for Chinese Sesame Noodles with Veggies from the Feasting at Home website.
Thanks so much for reading, and send in your recipes!
~ Trilety, the Aspiring Nutritionist
* How'd Omega 3 and Omega 6 get their names?: "Omega-3 fatty acids (omega-3s) have a carbon–carbon double bond located three carbons from the methyl end of the chain. Omega-6 fatty acids (omega-6s) have a carbon–carbon double bond that is six carbons away from the methyl end of the fatty acid chain.