Play safe
Dr
Sushila Sharangdhar explicates that blended oils are comparatively better
than single oils with rich antioxidant properties making them more beneficial
for good health
You
are what you eat. The most important consideration for all of us is
good health. People just think that consuming fats makes us fat but
how many people really know that choosing right kind of fat is necessary
for overall health especially cardiac health?
With so much variety and so many brands of cooking oil flooding the
market today, buying the right cooking oil can prove a tough task.
As you enter a departmental store, you behold an array of cooking oils
sporting all types of jargon on the packaging saturated fats, unsaturated
fats, refined, filtered, rice bran oil, vanaspati and more. Confused
already? Go ahead and be friendly with fats
Human being needs a wide range of nutrients to perform various functions
in the body and to lead a healthy life. The nutrients include proteins,
fat, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals. Among all the nutrients fat
is an important part of wholesome and balanced human diet.
The two sides of the same coin Ideally 25–30 per cent of our daily
energy requirement is to be provided through fats. Fats such as ghee,
butter and oil are known as visible fats and it is easy to estimate
their intake in the diet. Fats present in nuts, milk products, meat
and more are invisible fat. Firstly, let’s find out the meanings
of
common words associated with oil:
• Cholesterol A soft substance found among the fats in the bloodstream
and the body cells. Cholesterol is essential for the body’s functioning,
and there are two basic types; low-density lipoprotein or ‘bad’
cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein or ‘good’ cholesterol.
Elevated levels of blood cholesterol are an important risk factor for
the development of cardiovascular disease. Also, remember that oil does
not contain cholesterol but helps to promote the formation of it in
the body. Most cholesterol is not of a dietary nature that is, it is
formed within the body. It is only found in foods from animal sources
such as eat, poultry, shellfish, eggs, dairy products, lard and butter.
• Monosaturated Fatty Acid (MUFA) This refers to a healthy fatty
acid, which lowers the levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides without
lowering good cholesterol levels. Examples of MUFA rich oils are Rice
bran oil, olive oil, mustard oil, groundnut oil and more
.• Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid (PUFA)
This lowers the levels of good and bad cholesterol. This is not beneficial
as it lowers good cholesterol increases the risk of developing heart
disease. Examples of PUFA rich oils are all vegetable oils like safflower,
sunflower corn oil and more. The two important essential fatty acids
from PUFA group are omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
