The Healthy Diet »

No fat is necessary to maintain healthy skin and hair; it transports the crucial fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K; it helps you feel satisfied base it slows down the emptying of food from your stomach, and it supplies some essential fatty acids — the structural component of fat that your body needs, especially for manufacturing certain hormones.

What is the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats?
All fats combine two types of fatty acids, which are distinguished by structure and the relative amount of hydrogen they fits are loaded with all the hydrogen they can hold, fats contain less than the maximum number of hydrogen atoms. Unsaturated fats in turn, can be divided into two saturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. Polyunsaturated, Less hydrogen than monounsaturated.

Saturated fats comprise most of the fat in meat, poultry, shellfish all aim include coconut oil and palm oil. They usually remain solid at room temperature and almost always harden when refridged. (The fat in most commercially available milk does not solidify because it has been homogenized, a process that disperses the fat throughout the milk.) Polyunsaturated fats (including vegetable oils such as corn oil and safflower oil) and monounsaturated fats (such as olive oil and peanut oil) remain liquid at room temperature and when refrigerated.

A diet high in fat and low In carbohydrates not only is unhealthy, but It also lowers your energy. This graph shows the results of a study in which the same subjects ate a diet high in fat and protein, a normal mixed diet of their own choice, and a diet high in

carbohydrates and low in fat. The subjects spent three days on each diet. As their carbohydrate Intake Increased, so did their level of muscle glycogen — the form carbohydrates take when stored in muscle tissue. With the rise in glycogen came substantially greater endurance: On the high-carbohydrate diet, subjects could ride an exercise bicycle three times longer than they could on the high-fat diet.

Beyond a certain point, the higher the level of cholesterol in your bloodstream, the greater your chances of suffering a heart attack, which pools the results of several major studies. At levels below 180 milligrams per 100 cubic centimeters of blood, cholesterol Is not a significant factor In heart disease. At levels above 180, cholesterol In the bloodstream begins to playa large part In the Incidence of heart disease. Today, 80 percent of all middle-aged American men have cholesterol levels above 180.

Hydrogenated fats or oils are unsaturated fats that have been par­tially saturated with added hydrogen. The addition of hydrogen to margarine, which is made largely of unsaturated fats, causes it to solidify at room temperature.