What is a Low Fat Diet?

What Is a Low Fat Diet?

We hear so many references to fat these days, asking what is a low fat diet can clarify the issue. First of all, humans need fat; fat provides the body with energy, fatty acids, and vitamins A, D, E, and K, all essential for health and wellbeing. Fat adds flavor and texture to foods; people crave foods with high fat content. Food without fat tends to be food without taste.

However, adults actually need only a small amount of fat in their diets. Vegetarian diets with 10 percent of the calories coming from fat can be perfectly healthy. In very low fat diets like the Pritikin diet and the Dean Ornish diet, fats make up only 5-10 percent of the daily calories. The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine suggests that fat intake can be up to 35 percent of calories consumed.

When you compare these percentages to the percentage of calories as fat in many of our foods you can see the problem. Almost 100 percent of the calories in butter, margarine, and mayonnaise come from fat. For baloney, bacon, and avocado it's 80 percent. Many of our favorite foods are fat dense, which means they have at least 60 percent of their calories coming from fat. A low fat diet can reduce fat intake without endangering health.

But why would you want to reduce the fat in your diet? Certain fats, especially saturated fat and cholesterol, are believed to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Lowering the intake of these "bad" fats can reduce that risk. Studies are mixed on the health advantages of low fat diets and on whether low fat diets contribute to lasting weight loss.

Lower Fats Defined

Food labels declare their products to be low fat, fat free, or reduced fat. But what do these labels mean. In general, low fat means there are no more than three grams of fat in one serving. Fat free foods should have less than one-third of a gram of fat in a serving. Reduced fat foods have at least one-quarter less fat than the full fat product.

Reduced fat foods deserve a closer look. The fact is, the total caloric content of most of the commercial reduced fat products is not, or not much, lower than the original product. That's because when you remove fat you have to replace it with something, and that something is usually sugar. It is nearly impossible to reduce the content of both fat and sugar in a food product.  So remember, fat free does not mean calorie free and reduced fat does not mean reduced calories.

Light, extra-light, or "lite" on a label probably refers to the color or flavor of a product and not its fat content. You can compare the fat content of two products by looking at their nutrition labels.

If you look at the ingredients list on packaged foods you can tell the relative amount of fat in that food by where fat ranks on the list. If fat is one of the first ingredients listed, the product is probably a high fat food.

What is a Low Fat Diet Alternative Food?

A low fat diet consists largely of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains. A very low fat diet can be difficult to stick to because there is not much variety, nor do the low fat foods give a feeling of satisfaction, of satiety. You can, however, reduce your fat intake by controlling portion size and substituting fats with lower fat content.

Canola oil is a heart-healthy oil, which means it may reduce the risk of coronary artery disease because it is low in saturated fat. Olive oil is another good choice for a low fat diet.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) offers suggestions for lower fat substitutes for many popular foods. You may notice that many of the high fat foods listed here are also found on lists foods for a healthy diet. Avocadoes and nuts, for example. If you don't want to give up these tasty and nutritious foods you can control your fat intake by limiting portion size.

Following are a number of lower fat alternatives from NIH:

• For ice cream: Sorbet, sherbet, or low-fat or fat-free frozen yogurt.
• For sour cream: Low-fat yogurt
• For cream cheese: Neufchatel cheese or nonfat or light cream cheese.
• For cream soups: Broth-based soups.
• For nuts: Air popped popcorn.
• For tuna packed in oil: Tuna packed in oil.
• For pound cake or yellow cake: Angel food, white, or gingerbread cake.
• For bacon or sausage: Lean ham.
• For avocado on sandwiches: Cucumber or lettuce.
• For fudge sauce: Chocolate syrup.
• For chicken or turkey with skin or duck: Skinless white meat chicken or turkey.

Here are some more tips for lowering the fat in your diet:

• Instead of frying try baking, broiling, microwaving, steaming, or poaching meat, fish, and poultry.
• Replace some of the fat (butter, oil, mayonnaise, margarine) in cookies and cakes with applesauce, nonfat yogurt, or buttermilk.
• Use herbs and spices to liven up the flavor of low fat foods.
• Make one or two days a week meatless days; serve chicken, fish, or a vegetarian meal instead.
• Use spray oil for sautéing or cooking eggs instead of pouring oil from a bottle (you will use less) or using butter or margarine.

Take a Step

Researchers continue to learn more about what a low fat diet is and does, the value of fats in our diets, the differences between the "good" fats and the "bad" fats, and the relationship between lowering fat and losing weight. While a very low fat diet may not be right for many of us, most of us can make a few simple changes to lower the fat we take into our bodies.