How to Measure your Saturated Fat Intake

The American Heart Association recommends that those with heart disease or who are at high risk for heart disease or have high cholesterol adopt a diet low in saturated fat. Specifically, they suggest limiting saturated fat to no more than 7% of your total calories.

If you take in 2,000 calories a day, your saturated fat intake should be no more than 15 grams per day. If you take in fewer calories, that reduces the total grams of saturated fat you can consume in a day.

Saturated fat is in almost everything you can think of eating but the biggest culprits are those foods high in protein: dairy products, red meat, and fried foods.

Fruit, vegetables, fish, and lean poultry are low in saturated fat. Almost all processed food (frozen dinners, in particular) are high in saturated fat and should be avoided.

Sticking to a diet of less than 15 grams of saturated fat a day is not easy. But nutrition labels can help. The FDA requires product nutrition labels to break down the total fat in a product into Saturated Fat and TransFat. Measuring your saturated fat intake then is as simple as sticking to unprocessed foods and reading labels for anything you use that is packaged or processed, like sauces, condiments, and cooking oils. Also don’t assume that all products are alike – if you flip over to the nutrition label you will find there is often a wide range of saturated fat levels in food based on the manufacturer.

While some saturated fat is unavoidable, keeping your average daily saturated fat intake down is a heart healthy choice. And it’s as easy as reading nutrition labels.

To get the scoop on hearth healthy recipes read: The Healthy Heart Cookbook: Over 700 Recipes for Every Day and Every Occasion