Thread: saturated fats: good or bad?

In moderation they are good.

Depends on the source and the rest of your diet. It's not that simple.

Originally Posted by r00kie

I have come across conflicting views regarding saturated fats. Are they good or bad?

Does anyone here consume significant amount of saturated fats? (dairy, eggs, coconut etc) ?

Saturated fats from dairy, eggs and coconut are fine, but keep things in moderation.

Originally Posted by Witchblade

Depends on the source and the rest of your diet. It's not that simple.

that is true

A modest guideline for fat I like to recommend is to consume at minimum about half a gram daily per pound LBM, with roughly a third from each of monounsaturates, saturates and polyunsaturates.

If you go higher than half a gram per pound LBM, crank the monos.

For example, if you have 150 lbs lean mass, get in at least 25g poly, 25g mono and 25g saturated fat - 75g in total.

If you like a higher-fat approach, increase your monounsaturated fat before you increase saturates, and try to keep the polyunsaturated fat from creeping up.

Monounsaturated > saturated > polyunsaturated.

My .02

Originally Posted by Built

A modest guideline for fat I like to recommend is to consume at minimum about half a gram daily per pound LBM, with roughly a third from each of monounsaturates, saturates and polyunsaturates.

If you go higher than half a gram per pound LBM, crank the monos.

For example, if you have 150 lbs lean mass, get in at least 25g poly, 25g mono and 25g saturated fat - 75g in total.

If you like a higher-fat approach, increase your monounsaturated fat before you increase saturates, and try to keep the polyunsaturated fat from creeping up.

Monounsaturated > saturated > polyunsaturated.

My .02

Thank you very much built, thats exactly what I wanted to know

You're welcome. There is a lot of really good (and even more really BAD) information out there. The trick is in coming up with some way to assemble it so that you can actually USE it!

I'll add the final piece here: as part of your daily quota of fat, get in 10g fish oil to obtain the 3g combined EPA/DHA this dose will provide.

1/4 of your daily fat totals should come from saturated fats, the rest should be from mono and polyunsaturated fats. They are ok in moderation.

That depends if you're on a high or a low fat diet, don't you think? And high polys are a very bad idea.

^ I think that rule still stands. That's what my nutrition book said although I guess it good be wrong.

Why would it make a difference on the high or low fat diet though?

Why are high polys a bad idea?

Polyunsaturated fats are necessary - you DO need some, but they promote inflammation in the body. Of poly, mono and saturates, poly should be the lowest portion of your diet.

Why would high vs low fat matter? Well, you only need a certain amount of fat, right? But some of us eat a higher fat diet - for instance, me. I probably only NEED about 50-60g of fat daily, but I feel more comfortable on about 80-120g. That extra "padding" is probably best filled up by monounsaturated fat, right? I mean, if I go by a percentage approach, the higher my fat intake, the higher my saturated fat intake.

For instance - under your guidelines, if I consume 60g fat daily, 15g should come from saturates. If I consume 120g of fat daily, 30g should come from saturates? You sure about that? Does the body somehow understand how to do math - so the amount I eat isn't important to my health, only the relative amount is?

The way I do it is this. The first 60g of fat I consume, that's roughly what I probably "need" to support good health. I get in about 20g poly, 20g saturated and 20g monounsaturated fat from this.

If I go higher on the fats, I'll increase the monos, so poly:mono:saturates looks like 20:80:20

That's my best guess based on what I've seen of the literature. If you have better literature, I'd be delighted to read it!

I've only heard of polyunsaturated fats causing inflammation in people with a methionine, or choline defiecient diet. So if your eating enough different kinds of seeds among other things for methionine (an essential amino acid) and enough vitamin B for choline there shouldn't be a problem.

"The fats in the foods you eat should not total more than 25–35 percent of the total calories you eat that day and, for good health, the majority of those fats should be monounsaturated, polyunsaturated or both."

There wasn't a lot of information on this, but that's what I could find.

I see what your saying though that if you have a higher fat diet than you healthfully need then you'll need bnot to increase the saturated fat intake.

Although I think the other fats in your diet could have an effect on saturated fats once they're in your body and therefore keep that ratio maybe unsaturated fats help ro balance out saturated fats in some way once ingested. But that's just a thought to go along with that 1/4 thing. I don't have any evidence for that theory.

I thought you meant depending on the person's individual needs. So as a general rule of thumb if you're getting the minimal of what you need for a healthy fat intake then you need 1/4 of that to come from saturated fats.

But if you have a higher fat intake then that's best filled with poly and mono rather than adding more saturated fats.

Wow Built! lot of info there...

I have 2 questions for you-

1. what is your present carb-protein-fat % split?
2. do you believe in designing diets according to blood group?

Thanks.

According to what I have read saturated fats are not good. Everything is moderation should be there.