III. Fats (1 of 3)
The third category of macronutrients are fats, and fats are found both in foods and inside our bodies. They are more energy dense than both carbohydrates and proteins, so fats have nine calories per gram, compared with the four calories per gram that we saw with carbohydrates and proteins, and there are four categories that I'll talk about here.
The first are triglycerides. Most of the fat that's stored in our body is stored in the form of triglycerides.
The second category is cholesterol, and the interesting thing about cholesterol is that people often think of cholesterol in the terms of context of your health and thinking about how to avoid getting high cholesterol, and people worry about it because the body makes all the cholesterol it needs. And cholesterol is very important for many processes in your body, but a recommendation is to limit cholesterol intake because you don't need to eat cholesterol; it's not an essential nutrient because your body makes all that it needs to function properly.
The third category of fats are phospholipids, and these, this is a type of fat that's present in every cell of the body and allows fats to be suspended in your bodily liquids, like water and blood.
The final category here are trans fats, and trans fats are a manmade creation. They're formed by processing vegetable oils through a process called hydrogenation. And you find these in many margarines and other processed foods. So, check your labels. These are very harmful to your body. Although they are unsaturated, they operate in the body like saturated fats, and so they increase risks for cardiovascular disease, and really they're manmade in order to make foods that would typically be liquids, such as margarines, into a solid product, and oftentimes it's done to increase shelf life and improve flavor over a longer period of time. So although it does those things, it is not good for our health.