ANSWERS: 1
  • There is a huge difference between high-fat and low-fat food. According to USDA guidelines, foods that are classified as high in fat have a fat content of 30 percent or more. Conversely, if you want to choose a low-fat food the total calories coming from fat should be less than 30 percent. Labels, food pyramids and tabulation charts can help you decipher which is a low-fat and which is a high-fat food.

    High-Fat Foods

    According to Page Love, a registered and licensed dietician, if you want to find out how much fat is in a certain food product there is a simple calculation you can complete. Looking at the label and based on a 100-calorie calculation, take the grams of fat listed and multiply by nine (which is how many calories there are in a single gram of fat). So if something is listed as having 5 g of fat, multiply that by nine. The answer is 45, so the food in question would be made up of 45 percent fat. You can find these fat gram calculator guides at nutrition stores and online. Examples of high-fat foods include meat and many dairy products, because they are made from animal fat. Unless they are labeled otherwise, you can be assured these categories are high in fat. Fat has definitely gotten a bad rap in the last decade or so; however, humans do need a certain amount of it in their diet for fuel and to be nutritionally balanced. Animal or saturated fats are the ones to stay away from because they clog your arteries.

    Low-Fat Foods

    According to the FDA labeling guide, foods that are low in fat are classified as any food which has 3 g of fat or less per serving. You can spot low-fat labels easily on your grocer's shelves. Low fat does differ from fat free. Fat free is less than 0.5 g of fat per individual serving. Vegetables and fruits are naturally fat free unless they have had some sort of processed sauce or condiment added to them. With dairy products like cheese, there is a drawback in flavor when the fat content is lowered; they simply do not taste as good.

    Common Misconceptions

    Snack foods can be high in fat. Even granola bars can have as much as 50 percent of their calories coming from fat. Avocados can be high in fat, as can peanut butter, but the difference here is the type of fat. Both are made from vegetable fat, making them heart-healthy selections (in moderation) because they are not made up of animal fat.

    Warnings

    Just because fat is removed doesn't make the product more nutritionally sound, as most times fillers and sodium are added in place of fat.

    Source:

    Page Love M.S.,R.D.,L.D.,:Nutrifit Sport Therapy

    Sharon Pierce Corbin, R.N., M.S.,: How to calculate the amount of fat from labels

    Resource:

    USDA: Make your calories count, use the food label

    Nutrition Insight: Is total fat consumption really decreasing?

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