The fat truth

Balance is the key to a healthy diet, and that means eating the right amount of good fats and limiting the bad ones. Dr Rosemary Stanton shows how to do it.

The fat truth

Guy Bailey & Ian Wallace

Losing weight is a big challenge – there’s no denying that. Sure the equation is simple enough: move more and consume less. And that means reducing your fat intake, right? Well, it’s one way – the better option is to reduce your intake of ''bad'' fats, while maintaining a moderate intake of good fats. There are plenty of pitfalls to this, though, like tricky food labels and the whole ''fat-free'' furphy. Here are a few common mistakes to watch out for.

Good vs bad fats

All fats are high in kilojoules but some fats are good for us while others are not. A common mistake people make when they start a diet is to throw the good fats out with the bad. Foods high in "good" fats, such as nuts, seeds, avocado, fish or extra virgin olive oil, should still be included for their health-giving benefits. Foods high in bad fats, such as baked goods and snack foods, need to be cut.

It's not always easy to distinguish between the good guys and bad guys. Take oats as an example. Check the labels and you’ll see that rolled oats contain more fat than refined, sugar-drenched cereals. That doesn’t make the sweetened cereals better. The fat in oats is the good unsaturated kind, and oats also contain nutrients and valuable soluble fibre.

The truth about "low-fat"

For years, the main methods for reducing fat intake were trimming fat from meat, choosing fat-reduced milk and eating less butter, cream, cakes, pastries and fried foods. The meat and dairy industries responded to the trends and started producing trimmer cuts of meat and reduced-fat milk products. All good so far.

But then food companies started coming to the party with hundreds of low-fat items where the fat had been replaced with sugars and refined starches. Sugar has less than half as many kilojoules per gram as fat, but it's often added in larger quantities, making the overall kilojoule count higher, not lower. Any weight loss depends on having fewer kilojoules, so when it comes to low-fat products, the best advice is to read the label.

What about the products that boast they're fat free, such as jelly beans? Most of these are basically sugar and artificial additives. In contrast, nuts may contain fat but it's good fat and they also have essential nutrients. The bottom line? Make smart choices.

7 smart ways to switch out fats

Don't buy into the low-fat trap. These simple ideas and recipes and swap the bad fats with good fats.

Dress potato salad with yoghurt rather than mayonnaise. Yoghurt also adds protein and you save on salt, fat and kilojoules.
Blend your own muesli instead of buying processed cereals. Toast oats on a baking tray at 180C for 5-10 minutes or until golden. Combine with toasted slivered almonds and sesame seeds, ground cinnamon and dried fruit.
Pour a slurp of olive, peanut or sesame oil into a hot pan for stir-frying. Waiting until the pan is hot before adding the oil means you'll only need about half as much oil.
Swap a red meat dinner for a healthy vegetarian meal. Toss chopped pumpkin, potato, parsnip and eggplant in a plastic bag with 2 tbs chopped fresh rosemary or thyme and 1 tbs olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes at 180C. Top with roasted pepitas and cashews.
Go green and use avocado as a spread. Even if you use 20g of avocado instead of 10g of polyunsaturated margarine, you'll get only about half the kilojoules, fat and saturated fat. Avocado also adds dietary fibre, folate, and other B vitamins and potassium.
Top baked potatoes with a dollop of Greek yoghurt instead of sour cream. Even full-fat Greek yoghurt saves two thirds of the kilojoules, fat and saturated fat – the low-fat version halves those figures.
Choose lean beef mince. It costs more per kilo but has half the fat and two-thirds the kilojoules of regular mince. To break even financially, substitute 400g lean for 500g regular mince.