Healthy fat foods were once an oxymoron. I was working in hotel catering where we had plenty of decadent high fat dishes around.
Food life was easier back then…
All foods with fat were labelled bad back in those pre-extra virgin olive oil days (where these days olive oils aren’t virgins but we look for the label).
Foods were more black and white and good vs bad foods. That wasn’t the healthy nutrition facts and rainbow variety of foods we would evolve into. 🌈
I share the good, bad, and unusual in this article, plus a healthy fat foods list below.
Starting with nuts… pre-milennium, nuts were often seen as healthy fat foods in people’s homes on display.
Shelled nuts were sitting on a tray with maybe de-shelled nuts cracked with a nut cracker sitting near by. Cracking nuts in front of a television was an old-fashioned past-time. Oh, that’s nuts! 😊
Then over the years, nuts became the controversial “bad” snacks to be avoided because of the high fat content. It didn’t matter what the fat was. It was and is the healthy kind. But back then, fat was fat.
And you are what you eat was the mantra that was taken literally.
Then the nutty tide gradually turned (thank you research!) yet again where today all nuts are celebrated and valued as one of the healthy fat foods and healthiest snacks available out there.
Nuts are accepted and recommended in a healthy eating regimen. They have high healthy fat and protein content all in the size of a shelled M&M that could be wrapped around a large peanut.
But joking aside, earlier last year I was feeling stuck with my body as I hit a plateau and I couldn’t get my muscle strength back the same way.
I couldn’t do the same strength yoga moves I’d been doing for a decade. As we age, we lose muscle that we can’t gain back. And that’s a fact for both men and women.
We see proof in former male body builders common in American culture who can’t create the same muscle despite their desire and habits to maintain the muscle they had.
And the same effect in an opposite extreme of a lightweight female (myself 😊) who couldn’t do the same.
…So I tweaked up my diet routines.
I started my morning with a little fat and protein along with fiber. This was after I had started a regular fasting habit that you can too. It’s not that hard. If I can do it, you can too!
And I learned one of the best foods to break the fast with is an avocado, that’s a food celebrity loved by most. It’s beloved and celebrated.
It’s also a mild tasting fruit that can taste like a veggie. From an avocado, I could transition into healthy proteins easily that meant a savory breakfast (vs. a sweet one I had to overcome).
A little fat in your system helps to absorb the foods that have fat-soluble vitamins (D,E,A, andK).
So avocado being a neutral food 🥑 is balancing for Ayurvedic Vata, Pitta, and Kapha bodies.
🎉 Btw, there’s a new search feature 🔎 on this blog site so you can easily look up Vata, Pitta, Kapha, and other healthy blog articles.
…And in my tweaks I also added a little healthy fat snack back. I’m guessing you know what that may be. Yup, good ‘ol nuts!
I hadn’t been eating whole nuts as snacks by themselves for years because I thought they made my skin break out due to nut oils, when I believe it was other Pitta reasons now.
It’s funny the myths we tell ourselves.
…Or we go off of one tell-tale experience we had one season.
Plus, with nuts I had to change my mindset from the previous years where nut and fats were deemed as bad. Those were my nut challenges.
And like me, you could ask yourself: what changing mindsets about and around foods would help you reach your goals?
We can constantly be growing our minds to better ways and new lifestyle habits.
And the fact is our bodies are constantly evolving and renewing daily, so you could start a new regimen by testing healthy foods again that you gave up on before or thought you shouldn’t eat because of past sensitivities or reasons.
It’s healthy for us to add as many as possible healthy rainbow foods and variety into our diet if we’re not allergic because each healthy food has a different profile and makeup, even coming from the same family.
In those ways, then you don’t have to worry about whether you are or aren’t getting enough of one nutrient, vitamin, or mineral.
Or wonder if the supplements you’re taking are absorbed or not. You’re covered either which way with the rainbow assortment of foods on your plate. 🍽️
And when I made the healthy changes I did, I noticed a good difference to my thin-frame Vata body where the muscle tone came back and I could attempt to make progress with the strength yoga moves.
Whether your goal is to gain muscle or lose weight, when you eat healthy fats they increase HDL that increases growth hormone which triggers more amino acids that are building blocks for proteins needed for muscle production.
Muscles over flab is fab! 😊
The distinction is healthy fat foods vs. unhealthy fat foods. I provide a helpful healthy variety list below that can be good reminders.
Walnuts is one on the good list for brain health. They’re easy to remember as they’re shaped like our brains.
They have the powerful ingredient that some healthy fats have: Omega 3.
Omega-3 foods are anti-inflammatory. Omega 3 is good because it’s healthy fat that lowers triglycerides that’s known to be a risk factor for heart disease.
So here is the promised and promising healthy fat foods list (as part of a recipe for a good body and healthy lifestyle):
Avocado – the super food of healthy fats. It’s chameleon versatility is unparalleled to other plant foods. An avocado also has different names like alligator pear or butter fruit.
You can see why with the leathery skin, pear shape, and silky center texture. It’s unusual and common that blends well with us peeps.
An avocado seed is also one of the easiest seeds to grow as a plant. Like us, they like room temperature without excess humidity.
Seeds – flaxseed, chia seed, sunflower seed, pumpkin,and hemp seed all have different properties so it’s good to mix them in.
Chia seeds are good toward weight loss goals and adding more calcium for stronger bones.
We often forget about sesame and poppy seeds. They look like cute decorations on foods but they are healthy fat foods that can be added to healthy foods like yogurts and salads.
They don’t just decorate a bagel. Transfer them to your healthy adds.
Natural Almond or Peanut Butters – It’s easy to tell if a nut butter is healthy. The fewer the ingredients on the jar, the better. And when you can stir the oil into the nut butter, even better for the better butter. 😊
Nuts – almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pistachios, and pecans are all good common snacking nuts.
Macadamia, Brazilian, cashews, and pine nuts are not as common, but have their own healthy profiles.
Eating a variety for your healthy needs is a good strategy. Each nut is different even though they are healthy fat foods and protein all-in-one. That’s why they’re nutrient-dense.
To salt or not? The unsalted nut versions are better for you because often the salted versions add too much salt. But you could buy a bag of salted and a bag of unsalted and mix the two to your body needs, tastes, and liking.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)– is the good olive oil. The best is usually more bitter.
Finding high-quality, medium-balanced, and a mild extra virgin olive oil for cooking or baking could be your balance.
If you’re going to bake cakes and breads, using an extra virgin olive oil for the monounsaturated fat is a healthy choice over poly or saturated fats.
You can generally tell by the color if it’s light and mild or dark and bold.
The oleic acid oil is one natural healthy profile in EVOO that’s also found in almonds. It’s good for satiating hunger that helps with weight loss.
It also adds Omega-9 food (not as common so you may not have heard of) that can be found in avocados and other foods too that’s good for good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol.
Good is good so don’t mess with good.
EVOO also helps reduce the body’s glycemic response reducing blood sugar levels to help protect against known chronic diseases such as diabetes that’s a growing health concern on the globe.
That’s one reason why EVOO is at the heart of Mediterranean diets, foods, and cooking that’s eaten all around the world and in the Mediterranean Diet.
I worked in Spanish, Italian, and Lebanese restaurants in America doing event planning and marketing. These restaurants served authentic dishes where they learned from their countries’ cuisines and cultural cooking techniques.
Olive oil was always at the heart of dishes. Some of my favorite dishes are: paella, watermelon salad, and risotto.
Not being around those types of foods but pining for their tastes, I was inspired from my experiences. I created my own home recipe versions posted in my recipe log that are weekly being added to.
And to keep the party going here and the healthy fat foods list growing… these are a few more healthy fats.
Healthy Dairy – I think this is the new food controversy because of the variety of processes. Also, there are so many vegan and allergy-friendly versions out there these days that taste great.
If you’re not allergic, there are so many benefits to healthy dairy such as protein, probiotic, and vitamins.
One dairy problem is in cheeses because there’s such a wide variety of cheeses to choose from in types and processes. Some not so healthy.
And some healthy cheeses I worked with in catering party menus were shanklesh, manchego, burrata, halloumi, feta, and pecorino.
We usually knew the cheese sources, whether it was cow, sheep, goat, or buffalo. We just couldn’t point out which goat or sheep it came from.
But when you’re in a store looking at a sea of cheeses to choose from, it’s a guess at mystery cheese. The packaging won’t tell you much… other than thin slices in a package isn’t straight from a farm.
Pasteurized cheeses we identify with thin slices can often have stripped nutrients and other processes that offset the healthy fat profile.
In rural places like Sardinia with a large number of Centenarians, the goats eat wild grasses that have Omega 3 and antioxidants.
So when we don’t have those options or we simply don’t know, the answer again is variety. When you eat variety, you’re more covered. You can switch up your foods and your healthy cheeses.
For a natural Vata body, this is naturally easy because that’s the taste preference.
But if that’s not your natural way or you like what you like today and don’t want to switch, the better alternative is to add more of other foods to what you like. That way you make room and plant seeds.
And as you think about that, you can consider these other common cheeses:
Cottage cheese with reduced milkfat (and remember to read the sodium and sugar content).
Greek yogurt with reduced milkfat (like cottage cheese, read the labels). Sometimes “reduced” has higher sugar. And “no fat” is almost always a gimme for more sugar.
Eggs – are a complete protein with essential amino acids. Vitamin A, D, choline and most the B vitamins. So that’s why often you can feel a burst of egg-energy especially if you were feeling low sugar or energy before.
If you grew up with the same nuts controversy I did, then you probably got the same downloaded message about eggs and their bad cholesterol.
This could be the mindset you want to overcome. Because with all the egg-cellent healthy benefits, you may find a new way to bring eggs back to your kitchen.
Look for pasture-raised eggs and Omega-3 eggs. Omega-3 eggs can also benefit insulin sensitivity over insulin resistance so that could tip you in eggs favor.
And since we’re talking protein and healthy fat foods, one of the healthiest swimming out there is wild salmon.
Should you eat farm raised salmon? Personally, I wouldn’t on a regular basis for the same reason you wouldn’t order mystery food and put on a plate.
As alternatives or when not available, you can always switch up to another wild white fish as variety. Or bring home cans of smaller fish.
Having that backup plan is always calming. In my pantry, I’m prepared with options. And that can be your plan!
As a home baker or cook, you can source practical foods like extra virgin olive oil.
…I also like coconut oil. For controversial oils, it’s a saturated fat but is good in another way as it has a much higher good HDL profile than other oils. It also has a low bad LDL compared to even extra virgin olive oil.
So in moderation, when my tastes change I add a ‘lil oil to my morning coffee and other edibles I can dream up ✨ like dreamy smoothies.
One you may enjoy is this strawberry tropical smoothie that has a little strawberry popsicle and orange dreamsicle blended in one 🍓And a little healthy fat add is up to you! 🎉
Frozen Strawberry Smoothie Dreamsicle Sunrise
Ingredients
- 3 frozen strawberries.
- almond milk (or milk of choice)
- basil, mint, or cilantro.
- orange juice
- coconut oil (optional)
Instructions
- Blend the ingredients. When you add the herby flavor, it gives a third dimension. Mint will be mildest, basil is middle of the road, and cilantro will the the most pungent. Save Money Tip: you can freeze your fresh organic strawberries when they are in season.
- Pour about 3/4 full, leaving a little room for the orange dreamsicle layer.
- Mix orange juice and milk about half and half.
- After frozen, pour the orange layer on top.
- Freeze again or add crushed ice to the top layer
- Enjoy!
