While my sister was glancing at her food label last week (*establishing good habits*)
she asked me:
"What's the difference between monounsaturated and polyunsaturated?"
I looked at the label and realized the confusion this could have on a lot of people!
*So what are they?
*Is one worse or bad for you?
*WHY IS THIS ON MY FOOD LABEL?*
What are they?
We have all heard the about the horrors of trans fat
&& the need to limit our saturated fat
&& hopefully allllll the good stuff about unsaturated fat
so what is the mono/polyunsaturated fat all about???
Essentially, monounsaturated fats (referred to as MUFAs) and polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) are two subcategories of unsaturated fat.
- monounsaturated:
Science Warning : "Mono" (meaning "one") stands for the single double bond in the fat structure. This double bond makes the fat unsaturated by making a kink in its structure and allow it to melt at a lower temperature. Therefore, not all fat is solid, such as our olive oils and other vegetable oils we see as liquid. - polyunsaturated:
"Poly" (meaning "many") implies more than one of the double bonds so has multiple kinks and can melt at an even lower temperature, and also found in our vegetable oils. These are our omega-3 and omega-6 you hear about in which the number just refers to the location of the kink/double bond.
- saturated
Saturated has none of these bonds and therefore requires a higher temperature to melt and so we usually see them solid, such as Crisco and the white animal fat from a steak.
- trans fat
Trans fat has the highest melting point, but it is unique because it has a double bond that doesn't make a kink so its like a saturated fat but much stronger.
Are they bad?
No they are not bad, but like every food it should be eaten in moderation and are still a fat with high caloric value.
Is one better than the other?
In the common american diet, we mostly consume the MUFAs (monounsaturated fats), which come from almost all types of fat sources in our diet, vegetable oils, milk products, animal fats from our meat, etc.They are not necessarily bad, but not essential to our diet. However, these would be the much better choice than saturated or trans fats because the MUFAs appear to have minimal impact on cholesterol like those bad fats.
PUFAs (polyunsaturated fats) on the other hand include the essential fats we need in our diet (omega-3 and omega-6). The are also expected to help bring up our good cholesterol.
- omega-3/ linolenic: we don't get enough because its only found in limited food sources that people usually do not eat everyday such as fish, ground flax seed, chia seeds and a few more. They are essentially to our diet because our body cannot make them so try incorporate them into your diet more! (I'll make a future post for this :) cause I have some simple tricks for this! )
- omega-6/ linoleic : we eat this fat often and is easily included in our diet coming from olive oil, sunflower seed oil...essentially all plant oils, nuts and avocados (my fav)!
CONCLUSION:
Mono & Poly are subcategories of unsaturated fats that vary because of the number of kinks/double bonds they have in their chemical structure. Both are more healthy than saturated and trans because their lower melting point allows them to travel through our body much easier. PUFAs appear to be the better of the two because they appear to help increase good cholesterol. In addition, omega-3 and omega-6 are types of PUFAs that are essential to our diet because our body cannot synthesize them ourselves. However, omega-6 is easily found in our Western diet, but we are not getting enough omega-3s because of the limited food sources available with these fats and their poor incorporation into our Western diet.
