What is Monosaturated Fat?

What Is Monounsaturated Fat?

There are three fats commonly found in a diet, and all three have different effects and benefits. These three are saturated fat, monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat. It’s important to understand the benefits of the three naturally occurring types of fats in order to include them in your diet properly, as low-fat diets have many risks, including decreased brain function, poor brain health and hormone imbalance.

A fourth type, trans fat, is an extremely unhealthy byproduct of industrial fat production and should be avoided at all costs. In fact, this type of fat is so dangerous and highly associated with instances of heart disease, high cholesterol and obesity that the FDA issued a ban on these fats in 2015, giving a three-year limit on their elimination from all processed foods. In addition, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee released a groundbreaking recommendation to change its recommended dietary fat intake to include no upper limit on the three healthy types of fats. This was the first time in 35 years any change had been made to the former fat intake guideline. The committee even took it a step further to say that it does not recommend low-fat diets or lifestyles for obesity prevention. This is a huge positive leap. 

Fats are essential parts of your body’s ability to function. From body temperature to weight management, maintaining a good level of healthy fats in your body is extremely important to long-term health.

The truth is that we have heard in the U.S. for decades that low-fat diets are the way to maintain the lowest amount of body fat and stay healthy, but that’s not true. While it’s true that an overwhelming amount of fat in one’s diet may contribute to weight gain, this is true of any food that contains a high number of calories. Fats are a necessary part of any healthy diet, and you’ll understand why very soon.

Monounsaturated fat is fatty acid with one double bond in the fatty acid chain with the remainder single-bonded. The melting point of monounsaturated fats, or MUFAs, is between that of saturated fats and polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), meaning that they’re liquid at room temperature and begin to solidify when refrigerated. 

Like all fats, MUFAs contain nine calories per gram and should be consumed in moderation in order to regulate calories to acceptable daily intake levels.

The most common MUFA found in food is oleic acid, a fatty acid that occurs naturally in vegetable and animal oils, especially olive oil. Monounsaturated fats are found often in foods like olive oil, nuts, avocados and whole milk.

Scientifically, research shows that children with high levels of unsaturated fats in their diets have better “serum lipid profiles,” meaning that they actually have less lipids, or fats, in their blood. While this seems counterintuitive, it actually shows that your body was created to process dietary fat in a positive way.

Tags: Monosaturated Fat