The Importance of Healthy Fats

Discussing the different kinds of fats in foods can get a little dicey and can be a sensitive topic when trying to decipher what foods are “good” and which foods are supposedly “bad” for you and for your specific health journey. 

Certain fats, however, are not only healthy but necessary for a balanced diet and to sustainable health practices.  Healthy fats from whole foods are important for our brain and hormones, and can be broken down into two categories:

•  Monounsaturated fats: Fat molecules that have one unsaturated carbon bond, for example, olive, peanut, and canola oils, avocados,  nuts, and seeds, and –

• Polyunsaturated fats: Fat molecules that have more than one unsaturated carbon bond in the molecule, for example, Sunflower, corn, flaxseed oils, and fish.

Both types help lower the risk of disease. 

The fats you’d want to avoid are processed and refined with excess amounts of saturated fats, which have been shown to impair the gut; and can lead to inflammation and a myriad of other unwelcomed symptoms and discomforts.

Here’s a recipe that incorporates healthy fats, which is a prime example of how doing so can be both a delicious and fun implementation to your diet! 

Salmon Stuffed Avocados

Ingredients: 

Avocados- find yourself ripe avocados that will be easy to cut!
Canned Salmon- we use a lower sodium canned salmon so that we can have control over how much salt we add to our salmon salad. Feel free to use whatever canned salmon that you’d like.
Fresh herbs (parsley, dill, and green onions)- to add fresh and delicious flavor to the salmon salad we added fresh herbs! Don’t skip this ingredient.
Garlic– garlic makes everything better!
Lemon juice– this is another ingredient that freshens up these stuffed avocados and adds the perfect amount of brightness.
Olive oil– the olive oil binds everything together. Feel free to substitute with any oil of your choice.
Apple cider vinegar– a little vinegar goes a long way and compliments fish recipes!
Salt– the salt in this recipe enhances all of the delicious flavors in these stuffed avocados.
Cayenne Pepper– cayenne pepper is an optional ingredient for those of you who like to spice things up.

Recipe:

Prepare the avocados. Cut the avocados in half lengthwise and remove the pit. If your avocado had a smaller pit go ahead and make the avocado hole a little bigger so that your salmon salad will fit into the middle.
Mix salmon salad ingredients (salmon, herbs, oil, vinegar, garlic, spices) together, to taste. Place the salmon salad ingredients into a bowl and mix them together. If you have any excess avocado add it to the salad mixture.
Stuff the avocados. 

Using a 1/4 cup scoop, scoop the salmon into the middle of each avocado and enjoy.

Recipe Resource: Fit Foodie Finds

This week, try to add healthy fats to at least one of your meals a day.

Be well,

Dr. Erika Horowitz and Team