Eating heart-healthy can seem pretty complicated sometimes. Getting rid of your salt-shaker is easy enough, but all the recommendations about fiber, fish oil, nuts, and red meat are enough to raise your blood pressure. So let's simplify a heart-healthy diet by breaking it down to its most important element - a basic understanding of how different types of fats impact our health. Once you understand the truth about fat, it becomes easier to make heart-healthy choices that make sense.

The Good: Unsaturated Fats.
Categorized as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated, these unsaturated fats can actually improve your cholesterol profile by reducing your LDL (bad cholesterol) and boosting your HDL (good cholesterol). Sources of monounsaturated fats include olive oil, canola oil, avocado, and nuts. Corn oil, safflower oil, and soy oil provide polyunsaturated fats. Probably the best type of polyunsaturated fats are omega-3 fatty acids. Found in fatty fish, walnuts, and flaxseed, these fats not only improve cholesterol profiles but have been associated with a lower risk of heart disease and abnormal heart rhythms. The more the better.

The Bad: Saturated Fats.
Saturated fats are present in meat, eggs, and cheese, in addition to coconut and palm oil. Whereas unsaturated fats improve your cholesterol numbers, saturated fats do the opposite. The USDA recommends that we get less than 10% of our total calories from saturated fat. Given that one gram contains 9 calories, you're looking at a limit of twenty grams of daily saturated fat for an 1800 calorie diet. But before you pull out the charts, tables, and slide rule, you can get close to your target by significantly reducing your intake of animal products and choosing part-skim cheese and lean meats when you eat them.

The Ugly: Trans Fats.
These fats wreak havoc on your cholesterol profile and your blood vessels. Fried foods, margarine, and store-bought baked goods are common sources. Snacks like cookies and crackers use partially hydrogenated vegetable oils to keep their crunch - but you don't want your arteries to end up that way. The American Heart Association recommends limiting your trans fats to 1% of your total calories (that's about two grams), although cardiologists and the City of New York would prefer that we avoid them entirely. Look for menu labeling and new legislation about Trans fats in restaurants in your area. It is important to mention that nutrition labels can legally describe a food as "Trans Fat Free" if a single serving contains less than 0.5 grams - so be careful to read the small print.


Note that less emphasis is currently placed on dietary cholesterol than previously. While cholesterol in food can worsen your cholesterol profile, it won't have nearly the same impact as Trans fat, or even saturated fat. Decreasing your intake of meat and other animal products will lower your dietary cholesterol too, so you have two solutions in one.

By keeping your fats straight, you will ultimately end up consuming a more Mediterranean diet, higher in fish, olive oil, and nuts, and lower in red meat. You'll enjoy fewer processed foods, and more fruits and vegetables, which will boost your fiber intake and natural antioxidants. Focus less on numbers, grams, and calories, and more on concepts. And enjoy a glass of red wine now and then - you deserve it!

- James Beckerman, MD, FACC