Eat Unsaturated Fats For Fertility

Fat fell out of fashion when the no fat, low fat diet craze took hold of the food and diet industry. Fat was being blamed for everything: obesity, heart disease, the cancellation of My So-Called Life. Thank God that era came to an end. Now, fat is back. I personally think we owe unsaturated fats a debt of gratitude for the comeback fat has made in recent years. Once we realized not all fat is created equally, it became clear some are incredibly beneficial for our health. Now we know unsaturated fat is vital for a healthy heart, necessary for proper brain development, and improves fertility.

One of the suggestions in The Fertility Diet is to include unsaturated fats in your diet, especially as a replacement for trans fats. Replacing trans fats in your diet with unsaturated fatty acids (especially the omega-3 variety, more on that in a future post) may help increase your chance of getting pregnant, whether that is something you are actively trying to do now or hope to do in the future.

Unsaturated fats come in two forms: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Some of these fatty acids are essential, meaning our bodies cannot make them, so we must get them from our diet. The two essential fatty acids are linoleic acid, an omega 6 fatty acid, and alpha linolenic, an omega 3 fatty acid. Fortunately, they are found in a number of delicious foods, so getting enough is not hard to do.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post for some sources of unsaturated fatty acids and tips to help you include more of these beneficial fatty acids in your diet while also decreasing the trans fats.