As many food products on the market have become fat-free or reduced fat, consumers can significantly lack the amount of fat they need each day in their diets, especially healthy fats.

Healthy fats can be defined as those that are unsaturated, which are usually liquid at room temperature and include both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat.

Judy Trumpy, registered dietitian with the Thielen Student Health Center, said these fats and their chemical structure have been found to help lower cholesterol along with other benefits.

“When scientists and food scientists, particularly doctors in research, looked at the oils and then looked at the people who ate oils, they found that they actually had the ability to lower cholesterol in the body and to make other changes,” Trumpy said referring to oils that are high in unsaturated fats.

While cholesterol in foods has often been blamed for causing health problems, Trumpy said these problems don’t necessarily come from the cholesterol in food but rather the saturated fat in food.

“We thought it was the cholesterol in food that raised blood cholesterol, but in many cases that doesn’t seem to be the case,” Trumpy said.

According to the Harvard School of Public Health’s Nutrition Source in an article titled “Fats and Cholesterol: Out with the Bad, In with the Good,” studies have indicated a diet high in unsaturated fats, especially monounsaturated, can help “lower blood pressure, improve lipid levels and reduce the estimated cardiovascular risk.”

With so many options out there containing trans and saturated fats, it can be hard to try to balance a diet rich in unsaturated fats, but Trumpy said to try and limit the amount of red meat eaten throughout the week as well as trying to cut out fat on a piece of meat or even going to the extreme to blot out some of the saturated fat when going out to eat or eating at the dining centers.

“I often tell that to students. I’m kind of selective in who I say that to, but if you’re really interested, when you get your burger at Union Drive, take a bunch of napkins and blot it out,” Trumpy said.

Trumpy said about 7 percent of the recommended daily value of fat, which should be 30 percent of calories consumed per day, can be saturated, but the other amount should come from unsaturated fats. This shows that a 2,000 calorie diet would allow 67 grams of fat per day and approximately five of those being saturated, but Trumpy said it can be difficult to maintain this type of diet.

“I suppose the goal would be to do it on a daily basis but there are times and conditions when some things are not available,” Trumpy said. “It’s what you eat over a period of time more and more.”

Robin Lehner, junior in apparel merchandising, design and production, said she tries to avoid fats if at all possible and she perceives fats as only making you “look fat.”

“I usually only eat foods that are low in fat or have no fat,” Lehner said. “I do eat things with higher fat for protein.”

When grocery shopping, Lehner said she will study the nutritional labels to look at the fat content of what she is buying.

“I always look for the non-fat or low-fat option, even if it’s the most expensive,” Lehner said.

Trumpy said students who come to her to talk about weight loss are trying to eat fat-free or low-fat but that this trend is starting to end.

“More and more people are catching on that this is not a healthy way to go,” Trumpy said. “It’s slowly coming out of vogue, the low-fat or fat-free way of eating, because I think we found that, number one that it doesn’t taste as good long-term, and number two it isn’t satisfying.”

For students eating on campus, Trumpy said students can maintain a healthy diet that includes these healthy fats to achieve the benefits by also including “some exercise, some fruits and vegetables, and some anti-oxidants.”

Executive chef John Everett Phillips, Trumpy said, is working hard to lower the amount of fat content in the dining center recipes.

“He’s contacting companies to try and find things that don’t have trans fat and that try to use a healthy baking medium for cookies and things,” Trumpy said.