Cut down on saturated fat and sugar

Fats

To stay healthy we need some fat in our diets. What is important is the kind of fat we are eating. There are two main types of fat:

• saturated fat - having too much can increase the amount of cholesterol in the blood, which increases the chance of developing heart disease
• unsaturated fat - having unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat lowers blood cholesterol

Try to cut down on food that is high in saturated fat and have foods that are rich in unsaturated fat instead, such as vegetable oils (including sunflower, rapeseed and olive oil), oily fish, avocados, nuts and seeds.

Foods high in saturated fat

Try to eat these sorts of foods less often or in small amounts:

• meat pies, sausages, meat with visible white fat


• hard cheese


• butter and lard


• pastry


• cakes and biscuits


• cream, soured cream and crème fraîche


• coconut oil, coconut cream or palm oil

For a healthy choice, use just a small amount of vegetable oil or a reduced-fat spread instead of butter, lard or ghee. And when you are having meat, try to choose lean cuts and cut off any visible fat.

How do I know if a food is high in fat?

Look at the label to see how much fat a food contains. Generally the label will say how many grams (g) of fat there are in 100g of the food.

Some foods also give a figure for saturated fat, or 'saturates'.

Use the following as a guide to work out if a food is high or low in fat.

Total fat - what's high and what's low?

High is more than 20g fat per 100g
Low is 3g fat or less per 100g

If the amount of fat per 100g is in between these figures, then that is a medium level of fat.

Saturated fat - what's high and what's low?

High is more than 5g saturates per 100g
Low is 1.5g saturates or less per 100g

If the amount of saturates per 100g is in between these figures, then that is a medium level of saturated fat.

Remember that the amount you eat of a particular food affects how much fat you will get from it.

Try to choose more foods that are low in fat and cut down on foods that are high in fat.