We can’t talk about balanced diet without mentioning fats & oils. Besides, who doesn’t love the taste of fats & oil? Fats & oils are the most palatable and delicious class of food! Just imagine the taste of fresh hot bread and butter! Yummy right?
Let go back to the topic, fats & oils contain the highest amounts of energy, and their cravings are second to none when compared with other types of food!
Energy Store Room
In the body, fats serve as the energy store-room, it helps in protecting internal organs from possible damages caused from any impact and assists in the absorption of vitamins A, D, E, K, and production of hormones (chemical messengers).
When you eat foods rich in Vitamins A, D, E, K the fats in your body help to absorb them into your system.
In other words, any time we consume more energy than we need for the day, the body stores the excess as fat. Also, fats serve as an insulator for the body.
As stated earlier, to maintain a balanced diet we must moderate our fat intake to maintain a balanced diet and healthy weight.
Your body gets its required daily energy from carbohydrates, excess of which is stored as fat. This means that your body will store the extra energy you get from fats, and that my friend, is not good for the body!!
This is particularly true when you consume high quantities of saturated fats found in foods like meat, dairy and coconut oil, and trans fats contained in processed foods and cooking oil such as pastries.
An excess intake of these fats leads to elevated blood cholesterol levels and eventually, coupled with other factors, will lead to overweight and obesity which pre-disposes one to diseases like diabetes, hypertension, heart attack and even stroke.
