Sunday, September 15, 2013

Let’s Look at The “Fats”. Don’t Over “Exsaturate”!



Fats and Saturated Fats in Food.

First of all let’s define what fat is. FAT IS NOT IN ITSELF BAD!!! IT IS NECESSARY IN OUR DIETS. According to kidshealth.org, fat is a fuel source as well as the major storage form of energy in the body, making it vital to our ability to function. The problem arises when we eat too much fat or too much of the wrong kinds.
 
There are kinds of fat? Yes! There are good fats and bad fats. Good fats are monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and Omega-3’s. Bad fats, the ones to beware of, are trans fats and saturated fats.
Why are bad fats bad? They can raise cholesterol and increase your risk for heart disease! That’s really serious stuff.

So let’s go back and take a look at our two meals so far, pizza and chicken dunks. The first thing I would like to point out is the positive in these meals. There are ZERO grams of trans fat in either meal. This is a really great step towards healthy food. However, that’s where the positives begin to slow down.

Let’s take a look at the saturated fat levels in the food. In the extra cheesy pizza, we see 4.5 grams of saturated fat, making up 50% of the fat in the entire meal (9 grams). That’s already 23% of the daily value from just three tiny pizzas. The pepperoni, as you would predict, is even worse with a saturated fat total of 8 grams (40% of your daily value) out of the total 18 grams of fat. The chicken dunks fared much better on the fat and saturated fat, leading the pack by far with only ONE gram of saturated fat and only five grams of total fat! 

But again for the amount of total food that we just consumed in the pepperoni pizza Lunchables, having 40% of one’s daily value of saturated fat from what would most likely be considered as half of a meal or so is a little scary.

It made me happy to see such low fat content in the chicken dunk meal but I also remembered that what I consumed was the grand total of five pieces of chicken, a bit of ketchup product, candy, and a drink. Definitely not a meal.

On the matter of fats, we see that some Lunchables meals are better than others, and some would even be considered healthy if we looked at fats alone!

College Kid 1

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