Good Fats, Bad Fats & the Label Trick
Choose real-food fats — olive oil, avocado, nuts, fish — cook with the stable ones, and never take a ‘0g trans fat’ label at face value.
Fat is not the enemy
Real-food fats — extra-virgin olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds, fatty fish — carry flavor, keep you full, and help you absorb the fat-soluble vitamins in your vegetables. It's the man-made fats that cause trouble.
The ones to skip
Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, and the industrial fats in most processed and deep-fried foods. These are the trans and damaged fats worth leaving on the shelf.
The ‘0g trans fat’ trick
Here's one worth knowing: the FDA lets a label say ‘0 grams trans fat’ as long as there's less than half a gram per serving. So a product can be full of it and still claim zero. The real tell is the ingredient list — if you see ‘hydrogenated’ or ‘partially hydrogenated,’ put it back.
Match the oil to the heat
Save delicate oils (extra-virgin olive, flax, walnut) for raw and low heat, and use more stable fats for higher-heat cooking. More on that in Olive Oil & Heat.
Read the ingredient list, not just the front of the box. ‘0g trans fat’ can hide up to half a gram a serving — but the word ‘hydrogenated’ never lies.