Healthy Fats - Important For Your Body

Fat is a nutrient found in food. Your body requires fat to build cells, protect organs, absorb certain vitamins, and store energy. Your body cannot work without fat. 

What fat is made of

Fat is a compound. A compound is a substance made of two or more elements joined together. Fat is made of the elements carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

Inside a fat, carbon atoms are joined together in a long chain. An atom is the smallest piece of an element. Hydrogen atoms attach along that chain.

The length of the chain and the way the hydrogen attaches determine what kind of fat it is. This is why some fats are liquid at cooler temperatures and some fats are solid.

Saturated fat has hydrogen attached at every available place along the chain. The chain is straight. Straight chains stack together closely, which is why saturated fat is usually solid at cooler temperatures. Coconut oil and butter are mostly saturated fat, and so is the fat in meat.

Unsaturated fat is missing hydrogen in one or more places. Where hydrogen is missing, the chain bends. Bent chains cannot stack closely, which is why unsaturated fat is usually liquid at cooler temperatures. Olive oil is mostly unsaturated fat, and so is the fat in avocados, nuts, seeds, and fish.

The fats your body cannot make

Your body can build most of the fats it requires. When you eat more carbohydrate or protein than your body uses, your body builds fat from what is left over.

There are two fats your body cannot build. Those two have to come from food.

The two fats your body cannot make are unsaturated. One comes mostly from fish, walnuts, flax seeds, and chia seeds. The other comes mostly from seed oils, nuts, and seeds.

Your body uses these two fats to build cell boundaries and to make compounds that control inflammation. Inflammation is your body’s response to injury and infection. Some inflammation is necessary. But inflammation that continues when it is not needed causes damage.

Your body requires both fats. Fish, walnuts, flax seeds, and chia seeds carry the first fat. Seed oils, nuts, and seeds carry the second.

Your cell boundaries are made of fat

Every cell in your body is surrounded by a boundary, and that boundary is made of fat.

The boundary is two layers of fat molecules facing each other. This boundary is what decides what enters the cell and what leaves.

Bent chains from unsaturated fat and straight chains from saturated fat behave differently inside a boundary. Your body uses both, and the proportion of saturated and unsaturated fat determines how the boundary works. The fat you eat becomes the fat in those boundaries.

Your brain and fat

About sixty percent of your brain is fat.

The nerve cells inside your brain are wrapped in a fatty covering, and so are the nerve cells throughout the rest of your body. That covering lets a signal travel faster along the nerves. Without the covering, signals slow down.

The boundaries around your brain cells are made from fat, the same as every other cell in your body. Your brain uses a large amount of one particular unsaturated fat in those boundaries. That fat is called DHA.

Your body can make a small amount of DHA, but to make DHA, your body requires one of the two fats your body cannot make. That fat comes from food such as walnuts, flax seeds, and chia seeds.

Your body can receive DHA directly from food such as fish

Fat helps absorb certain vitamins

Most vitamins dissolve in water. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are four vitamins that dissolve in fat. This means your body absorbs those vitamins when fat is present with the food you are eating. For example, eating a salad of dark leafy greens with no fat means much of the vitamin K in that salad passes through your body without being absorbed. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are four vitamins that dissolve in fat. This means your body absorbs those vitamins when fat is present with the food you are eating. For example, eating a salad of dark leafy greens with no fat means much of the vitamin K in that salad passes through your body without being absorbed.

Adding foods like avocado, oil, nuts, or seeds to a vegetable meal increases how much of the vitamins your body receives.

Fat is how your body stores energy

Your body stores a small amount of energy as carbohydrate and a large amount as fat.

Fat holds more than twice the energy of carbohydrate for the same weight. Storing energy as fat means your body can carry a large amount of energy without carrying a large amount of weight.

Fat protects your organs

Some fat in your body is not stored for energy. That fat stays where it is because being there is the job. Your body places that fat where protection is required.

A layer of fat sits around your kidneys, holding the kidneys in position and cushioning them. Fat also sits behind your eyes, around your heart, and under your skin, where the fat holds heat in your body.

Where fat comes from

Fat comes from the food you eat. Fish, eggs, meat, nuts, seeds, avocados, coconut, olives, dairy, and the oils pressed from these foods all provide fat. Beans, whole grains, and some vegetables provide smaller amounts of fat.

If you are increasing the nutrient dense food you eat, fat is part of what your body requires.

Stacy 💕

Information about how the body works in this post comes from my learning and research.

https://youtube.com/shorts/vHNlZ3LtPkQ

I share my experiences and my perspective. Eating and healing look different for everyone. If you are struggling with food or your relationship with your body, please find support. You don’t have to do this alone.