For some time, health authorities have recommended that Americans limit their daily intake of saturated fat to 10 percent of calories consumed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The American Heart Association recommends a saturated fat limit of just 5 percent of daily calories. I suspect that the vast majority of Americans don’t have the faintest idea of whether their daily diet includes more or less than 10 percent of their caloric intake as saturated fat. Until recently, I had no idea either. So I decided to see for myself.
The standard amount of daily caloric intake of an average American per the Food Facts labels on store-bought packaged foods in 2,000 calories. Since I’m larger than the average person, I estimate that my daily caloric intake is 2,200 calories. Ten percent of that is 220 calories. Each gram of fat contains about 9 calories. Therefore, 10 percent of my daily calories as saturated fat equates to 220 calories fat x 1 gram fat/9 calories = 24.4 grams of saturated fat. I assume all fats, saturated or otherwise, have 9 calories per gram.
I then listed all of the foods that I customarily eat on a regular basis and searched online for the amount of saturated fat in grams in one serving. If my intake of a particular food was more or less that one serving, I adjusted the number of grams of saturated fat accordingly.
You’ll see that I included cauliflower as a dinner item. I don’t eat cauliflower every day. Rather I alternate between broccoli, green beans, Swiss chard, Brussel’s sprouts, and spinach. These vegetables have no or minimal amounts of saturated fat, so which vegetables I eat for dinner (or lunch or breakfast) really doesn’t much affect my daily intake of saturated fat.
Let’s see if my typical daily food consumption keeps me under the proposed limit of 10 percent of calories as fat. You’ll see from the following list of foods I commonly eat that most of the foods have little or no saturated fat. For me, the big ticket items for saturated fat include cheese, meat, peanut butter, and reduced-fat milk (mostly animal products).
You’ll notice minimal meat in the list. That reflects that my wife and I eat meat maybe twice a week partly for health reasons and partly because of climate change and animal welfare reasons. Climate studies that I’ve read consistently identify commercial beef at the top of the list of foods that incur the greatest amount of greenhouse gas emissions. If you’ve ever spent much time around a feedlot, you’ll know how foul they can smell. Feedlot animals spend time in unsavory conditions. When my wife and I eat meat, it’s typically grass-fed ground beef or stew beef. We use meat as a complement to other foods we eat rather than the main event.
You’ll also notice a lack of eggs. Some of the lack of eggs reflects to current egg shortage due to bird flu. I used to eat a lot of eggs but I’ve cut back to maybe two eggs per week in an omelet. Two medium eggs have 2.0 grams of saturated fat. Because I included meat in the dinner category (even though we don’t eat meat every day), I’ve not included saturated fat from a weekly omelet. The research I’ve read has convinced me that processed meat is not healthful. That’s a bummer for me because I love sausage and hot dogs. I eat a couple of hot dogs a year on special occasions but that’s it. My wife likes Italian sausage in minestrone soup. In the interest of marital harmony I eat her minestrone soup with sausage. It tastes great!
Breakfast
Zucchini, 1.5 cups – 0.2 grams sat’d fat (assumes 196 grams zucchini)
Olive oil, 1 Tbsp. – 2 grams sat’d fat
Thick rolled oats, ½ cup – 0.5 grams sat’d fat
Blueberries, 0.5 cup – 0 grams sat’d fat
Wheat bran, ¼ cup – 0.1 gram sat’d fat
Wheat germ, ¼ cup – 0 grams sat’d fat
Greek yogurt, non-fat, unsweetened, ½ cup – 0 grams sat’d fat
Soy milk, 0.5 cup – 0.1 grams sat’d fat
Coffee, 1.5 cups, 0.2 cups reduced fat milk, – 0.6 grams sat’d fat
Chai tea – two 6-oz. cups daily, 3/4 cup reduced fat milk = 2.5 grams sat’d fat
Breakfast total saturated fat = 6.0 grams
Lunch
Carrot, 1 medium – 0 grams sat’d fat
Apple, 1 medium – 0.1 grans sat’d fat
Hummus, 1 ounce – 0 grams sat’d fat
Green cabbage, 1.5 cups, 0 grams sat’d fat
Olive oil, 1 Tbsp. – 2 grams sat’d fat
Parmesan cheese, 2 tsp. – 1 gram sat’d fat
Wheat bran, ¼ cup – 0.1 gram sat’d fat
Wheat germ, ¼ cup – 0 grams sat’d fat
Greek yogurt, non-fat, unsweetened, ½ cup - 0 grams sat’d fat
Soy milk, 0.5 cup – 0.1 grams sat’d fat
Pear, ½ large – 0 grams sat’d fat
Whole-wheat bread, 1 slice – 0 grams sat’d fat
Peanut butter, 2 Tbsp. – 3.5 grams sat’d fat
Swiss cheese, 1 ounce – 5 grams sat’d fat
Almonds, ¼ cup - 1 gram sat’d fat
Lunch total – 12.8 grams of saturated fat
Dinner
Lentil soup, 2 cups – 1 gram saturated fat from olive oil
Chili with ground beef and kidney beans, 2 cups – 3.3 grams sat’d fat
Cauliflower, 1 cup – 0 grams sat’d fat
Pinto beans, 3 Tbsp, dry but I eat it cooked – 0 grams sat’d fat
Whole-wheat bread, 1 slice – 0 grams sat’d fat
Peanut butter, 2 Tbsp. – 3.5 grams sat’d fat
Orange, 1 medium – 0 grams sat’d fat
Dinner total – 7.8 grams saturated fat
What’s the verdict?
The daily total amounts to 6.0 = 12.8 + 7.8 = 26.6 grams of saturated fat, which exceeds the 10 percent daily limit of 24.4 grams of saturated fat.
What did I do?
Based on the above results, I decided to nix Swiss cheese and use part-skim mozzarella cheese instead. Gourmands may turn up their noses at such a thing, but I happen to like part-skim mozzarella. That substitution reduced my daily saturated fat intake by 1.5 grams. Now I’m only 0.7 grams of saturated fat over the 10 percent limit. Is this a problem? I have no idea, but I doubt it. With all the healthy foods I eat (fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, whole grains) I eat, I think I have a healthy diet. Plus, my apoB/apoA-1 ratio (a better measure of atherosclerosis risk than daily saturated fat intake) lies on the upper end of the low risk category.
