For decades, fat was one of nutrition’s most demonized nutrients. The prevailing wisdom was simple: If you wanted to lose body fat and protect your cardiovascular health, the less fat you ate, the better. And although we now know that nutrition is considerably more complicated, some of those old assumptions have proved surprisingly difficult to shake.
Just ask nutritionist Laura Parada, author of What Drives Us to Eat This Way. She often sees an old school, anti-fat mentality among her clients, particularly women, who instinctively reach for anything labeled 0%, skim, or low-fat under the assumption that it’s the obvious, healthier choice.
But as Parada points out, “Eating fat doesn’t mean accumulating body fat, nor does eliminating it from our diet automatically make a diet better.”
In fact, fat is essential to our health. “Some fatty acids are essential; they form part of our cell membranes, play a role in various physiological processes, and allow us to absorb fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K,” Parada explains. “In addition, the presence of fat in meals can contribute to feelings of fullness and make our meals more satisfying.”
For women, there’s another important consideration: hormonal health. “Lipids and cholesterol are involved in processes related to the synthesis of steroid hormones, including sex hormones,” says Parada. “This doesn’t mean that eating more fat will produce more hormones, but excessively restricting fat isn’t necessarily a good strategy either—especially when caloric intake is insufficient to meet the body’s needs.”
Which brings us to a more useful question. Rather than asking How much fat should I eat?, Parada suggests asking What sources of fat am I choosing, and what role do they play in my diet? After all, not all fats—or the foods that contain them—are created equal. The source, nutritional profile, degree of processing, and frequency with which we consume them all matter, as does our overall eating pattern.
To make sense of it all, Parada and dietitian María Casas helped us sort common sources of dietary fat into a traffic-light system: red for those best limited, orange and yellow for those worth approaching with a little more nuance, and green for the healthy fats to prioritize.
Red: The Least Healthy Sources of Fat
Industrial baked goods, ultra-processed snacks, certain fried foods, and processed meats.
The foods in this category probably won’t come as a surprise. Industrially-produced baked goods, certain ultra-processed snacks, fried foods, and processed meats such as sausages and bacon tend to combine less favorable fat profiles with other ingredients best consumed in moderation.
