•Saturated Fats
Saturated fats are the fats that are derived from animal sources, such as that of beef or other similar products, and these fats go hard when at room temperature. Saturated fats are basically the type that you would generally like to avoid, as they are one of the types of fats that are the worst for you. Furthermore, saturated fat is the fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acids, and foods that contain a high proportion of saturated fat include that of: butter, tallow, lard, coconut oil, cottonseed oil, and perm kernel oil.
•Unsaturated Fats
Generally, unsaturated fats come from specific plant resources, such as canola oil, olive oil, and other similar products. In other words, an unsaturated fat is one in which there is one or more than one double bond in the fatty acid chain. Basically in this regards, a fat molecule is monounsaturated if it contains one double bond and polyunsaturated if it contains more than one double bond. As well, therefore a saturated fat is saturated with hydrogen atoms, and the greater degree of unsaturation in a fatty acid, the more vulnerable it then is to lipid peroxidation.
•Trans Fat
This is yet another type of fat, and trans fats are actually a type of unsaturated fat. All trans fats occur naturally, in small quantities, in such things as meat and dairy products, and most of the trans fats that are consumed today are industrially created as a side effect in fact of partial hydrogenation of plant oils. This is a process which was developed in the early 1900s and which was first commercialized as Crisco in the year 1911.
Furthermore, unlike all other types of fat, trans fats are neither required nor beneficial for your health. Trans fat is actually thus one of the worst types of fats for you. Eating a lot of foods that are high in trans fats is incredibly bad for you, and puts you at risk for a multitude of different health problems, including that of coronary heart disease.
From this it is quite easy to see that there are many different types of fats, and it is actually quite surprising not only that there are some fats that are good for you, but also the fact of how different each type of fat really is. Each type has different qualities to it, and all of these qualities in regards to each one must be taken incredibly seriously into consideration in order for you to be able to come to a proper and knowledgeable understanding on what type of fat you should be consuming.
