Monosaturated Fats

All fats are not created equally. There are both good fats and bad fats. It is essential to get more good fats, like monosaturated foods, and it’s best to avoid bad fats that could put your health at risk.

There are various types of fat in your diet, and they might vary in their chemical structure. Unsaturated fats have double bonds in their chemical structure.

MUFAs, or monounsaturated fatty acids, are a specific type of unsaturated fat. “Mono,” meaning one, which signifies monounsaturated fats that could have only one double bond.

There are many different types of MUFAs. Oleic acid is one of the most common types, comprising around 90% of those in the diet.

Understanding fats

Fats are often criticized as bad for health. However, fat is a nutrient that may give you energy and, when consumed in moderation, is part of a healthy diet. There are four kinds of fat, each containing nine calories per gram. Fat aids your body in absorbing vitamins A, D, E, and K. Fats are either saturated or unsaturated, and both are found in all nutrition labels. 

Saturated fat

This kind of fat is solid at room temperature. It is found mostly in animal foods like cheese, milk, and meat. Fish and poultry contain less saturated fat than red meat. Saturated fat can also be found in palm oil, coconut oil, and cocoa butter.

Recipes that use margarine or butter have more saturated fat and may raise bad cholesterol levels. To maintain a healthy diet, try keeping saturated fat calories to less than 10% of your daily calories.‌

Unsaturated fat

This type of fat is liquid at room temperature, and there are two different types: monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat. They primarily come from plant oils. When bad fats increase bad cholesterol levels, unsaturated fats could help lower them. They’re mostly found in plant oils.

Monounsaturated fat

 Monounsaturated fats (MUFA) work in two different ways to enhance your cholesterol levels. They lower your bad cholesterol levels, also called LDL cholesterol. They could also help raise your HDL and good cholesterol levels.

You could find monounsaturated fats in:

• Canola oil‌
• Peanut oil
• Olive oil
• Avocado

Polyunsaturated fat

This type of fat is primarily found in vegetable oils, such as: 

• Safflower oil
• Sesame oil
• Sunflower oil 
• Corn oil
• Soybean oil‌

Polyunsaturated fat is also found in seafood and is most commonly referred to as omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Consuming polyunsaturated fat might also reduce your bad cholesterol levels while raising your good cholesterol levels.

It is essential to note that when you see “total fat” listed on various nutrition labels, it could be a combination of all four types of fat. You could also try reading further to see the content of each type of fat.

Monosaturated fats in your diet

Your body might need some fats for energy and other functions. Monounsaturated fats are a healthy choice. Here are some recommendations from the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines to know the intake of monosaturated fats.

Look to get not more than 10% of your total daily calorie requiremnt from saturated fat, which could be found in butter, red meat, cheese,whole-fat dairy products, etc. For a calorie diet of 2,000, that would be a total of 200 calories, or 22 grams a day.

Keep your total daily calorie fat consumption to 25% to 30%, including monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

Eating healthier fats is necessary to be healthy.But consuming too much fat might lead to gaining weight. All fats could contain nine calories per gram of fat. It is more than twice the amount found in protein and carbohydrates.

Adding foods that are high in unsaturated fats to a diet that is filled with unhealthy foods and fats is not enough. You must also replace trans or saturated fats with unsaturated and healthier fats.

Foods with monosaturated fats

Most foods might have a combination of all types of fats. Some could even have higher amounts of healthy fats than others. Foods and oils with high amounts of monounsaturated fats include:

• Canola oil
• Nuts
• Olive oil
• Safflower oil (high oleic)
• Avocado
• Sunflower oil
• Sesame oil
• Peanut oil and butter

It’s essential to replace unhealthy fats with healthy fats by:

• Consume nuts instead of cooking as a snack. Remember to control your portion, as nuts are known to be high in calories.
• Try adding avocadoes to sandwiches and salads instead of just mayonnaise and dressings.
• Swap butter and solid fats with avocado, canola oil or olive.

Benefits of monosaturated fats

Aids in losing weight

All fats can provide similar amounts of:

• energy – 9 calories per gram 
• carbs and protein – 4 calories per gram

Hence, lowering the amount of fats in your diet could effectively reduce your intake of calories and lose weight.

Studies showed that diets with high MUFA are slightly more impactful than the ones with high-carb diets for losing weight.

Therefore, high-MUFA diets could effectively lose weight when swapped with other calories rather than adding extra calories to the diet.

High-MUFA diets could aid in your weight loss journey and may even be more effective than low-fat, high-carb diets.

Potential reduction of risk factors for heart disease

There is a huge debate in nutrition about whether excessive consumption of saturated fats increases the risk of heart disease.

However, raising the MUFAs in your diet could alleviate the risk factors for heart disease, especially if you’re swapping saturated fat.

Too much cholesterol in the blood is a risk factor for heart disease, as it could clog arteries and could even lead to strokes or heart attacks . Various studies have shown that an increased intake of monounsaturated fats could lead to reduced triglycerides and blood cholesterol . 

For instance, study found that the diet which is high in saturated fat raises the unhealthy LDL cholesterol by at least 4%, while the diet with high-MUFA diet lowered LDL cholesterol by 5%.

Diets with High-MUFA aid in alleviating blood pressure. A study found that a diet with high-MUFA lowered blood pressure and heart disease risk, compared to a diet with high-carb.

Aids in lowering the risk of cancer

Diets rich in MUFAs might aid in reducing the risk of certain cancers, such as prostate cancer, which is common in men. Various studies have examined whether men who consume a good amount of MUFAs have increased or alleviated rates of prostate cancer, but it still remains unclear.

Diets with High-MUFA, which included olive oil in their food, have shown the lowest rate of breast cancer in women. Other components of diet could also be taken into account to contribute to this beneficial effect.

Potentially aids in enhancing insulin sensitivity

Insulin is a hormone that controls and manages your blood sugar by transmitting the blood into your cells. Insulin production is essential in preventing blood sugar levels and type 2 diabetes.

Studies have shown that high-MUFA diets could enhance insulin sensitivity in individuals with and without high blood sugar.

Individuals with metabolic syndrome found that those who ate a diet with high MUFA for 12 weeks had significantly alleviated insulin resistance.

Alleviates inflammation

Inflammation is a process in the normal immune system that aids in fighting infections in the body. But sometimes inflammation happens slowly over a long period of time, which could contribute to chronic diseases like obesity and heart disease.

When compared with other diets, such as high-saturated fat diets and other diets, high-MUFA diets could alleviate inflammation.

Studies have shown that people who consume and maintain a Mediterranean diet, which is high in MUFAs, have significantly reduced inflammatory chemicals in their blood, such as interleukin-6 (IL-6).

And C-reactive protein (CRP) and High-MUFA diets could also alleviate the expression of inflammatory genes in fat tissue compared to other high-saturated fat diets. This could be one of the ways that MUFAs might be helpful in losing weight. By lowering inflammation, diets with high MUFA might aid in alleviating the risk of chronic diseases.

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