Diabetes Diet - The Importance Of Fats

Implementing a diabetes diet and knowing the importance of which fats are good for you and the fats that you should avoid altogether is vital for your health and especially if you are diabetic. Being overweight is a definite contributor to people who develop type 2 diabetes; consuming the wrong fats and too many fats in your diabetes diet is very unhealthy and can lead to many complications.

Fat contains a lot of kilojoules and has the least amount of nutrients, making it once source you should consider limiting in your diet. Fat contains 37 kilojoules per gram, which is twice the energy of carbohydrates and protein.

It does not matter about the fat content in your diet so much as the type of fat that you consume. Monounsaturated fats should be the main types of fat that you consume; some of these include olive oil, nuts, seeds, and avocadoes for example.

Heart disease is a huge problem especially with people that have diabetes, these people have a great risk of getting cardiovascular disease; It is also known that heart disease and strokes are 2 to 3 times more likely to occur in people with type 2 diabetes than those that do not have this disease. Sadly, around 70 percent of people with type 2 diabetes die of cardiovascular disease.

A known risk factor of cardiovascular disease is high levels of the bad (LDL) cholesterol and the total amount of cholesterol; by reducing the total fat, especially saturated fats will lower both the LDL and the total cholesterol which will decrease your risk of getting cardiovascular disease.

Butter, margarines and oils are the most concentrated sources of fat in our diets that we consume. Fats are basically categorised into three main groups, which are monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and saturated. How these are categorised is based on the chemical structure of each fat and the type of fatty acid that is prevalent.

The importance of fats in our diabetes diet include:

Fat is an integral part of many hormonesFat is a part of all the cell membranes in our bodiesFat is an energy sourceFat provides us with insulation, warmth and also protects vital organs in our body like our kidneys, andFat is the carrier of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K as well as many antioxidants

Some of the fatty foods that you should limit in your diabetes diet are:

Fatty meats and processed meatsFull cream dairy productsDeep fried foodsAll take-away foodsCakes, pies, pizza, biscuits and pastriesPotato crisps as well as all the other packaged snack foods available, andFrying oils, copha, ghee and cooking margarines

Choosing a healthy balance of fat in your diabetes diet is essential if you want to achieve optimum health and avoid the fatal complications of this terrible disease.