We’ve come full circle with loving and hating fats. 
During the 1970’s up until recently, we were sure fats, particularly saturated fats, were the demon responsible for our weight gain, cardiovascular disease and poor health. There are still some health professionals now who ask us to avoid fats and saturated fats. A classic example of this is the recommendation to avoid eating butter and using cholesterol-lowering trans filled fat margarine instead! The only problem is, while we’ve all been doing this, our obesity rates have still been increasing and cardiovascular disease is still at the top percentage of what’s killing us. Additionally, it turns out trans fats behave like saturated fats, and still increase cholesterol!
So maybe fats aren’t as bad as we first thought? And not all fats are made equal; there are good and bad types.
A recent study followed 716 Japanese women, their diets and the effects this had on their skin appearance and quality.
Skin ageing, elasticity, hydration, oils present and the number of wrinkles were recorded.
What was discovered was the skin of women who ate more fats, including saturated and monounsaturated types, aged significantly slower and had fewer wrinkles with more elasticity.
Also, women who ate more green and yellow foods, such as kale, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, yellow capsicum, squash, zucchini and tomatoes, had far less wrinkles, possible due to the antioxidants present, protecting them from free- radical damage.
Some of the best sources of healthy fats and oils are: grass-fed meat, organic dairy products like full fat butter and yogurt • wild caught salmon • pastured poultry, eggs • coconut oil • Extra virgin cold pressed olive oil, raw nuts, seeds, chia seeds and flax seed oil.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Honor Tremain - Nutritionist and Health Writer
Honor is a qualified naturopathic Nutritionist and health writer. She is very passionate about nutrition and health, and has been working in the field for almost 20 years. Honor is the head nutrition writer for the multi-national Fitness First magazine, which won best app for an iPhone & tablet device in 2011 for the ‘Magazine excellence awards’. Honor also has her own ‘Ask Honor’ column and weekly health article in the APN newspapers for The Fraser Coast Chronicle and Observer in QLD. She designs weight loss meals and menu’s for Sydney based food manufacturer Core Food Concepts. Honor has lectured and supervised the Nutritional medicine students at one of Sydney’s largest Natural therapies college’s- Nature Care College. You can follow her and many of her articles on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/HonorTremain
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