ALL ABOUT FATS AND CHOLESTEROL
Once upon a time, we didn't know anything about fat except that it made foods tastier. We cooked our food in lard
or shortening. We spread butter on our breakfast toast and plopped sour cream on our baked potatoes. Farmers
bred their animals to produce milk with high butterfat content and meat "marbled" with fat because that was what
most people wanted to eat.
But ever since word got out that diets high in fat are related to heart disease, things have become more
complicated. Experts tell us there are several different kinds of fat, some of them worse for us than others. In
addition to saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, there are triglycerides, trans fatty acids, and
omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids.
Most people have learned something about cholesterol, and many of us have been to the doctor for a blood test to
learn our cholesterol "number." Now, however, it turns out that there's more than one kind of cholesterol, too.
Almost every day there are newspaper reports of new studies or recommendations about what to eat or what not to
eat: Lard is bad, olive oil is good, margarine is better for you than butter-- then again, maybe it's not.
Amid the welter of confusing terms and conflicting details, consumers are often baffled about how to improve their
diets.
