Saturated versus unsaturated fats. What's the difference and why does it
matter? I'm gonna explain hey I'm Dr. Ekberg with Wellness For Life and if
you like to truly master health by understanding how the body really works
make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you don't
miss anything. So what is a fat? Fat is a chemical compound that's made up of
primarily carbon and hydrogen so a string of carbon atoms linked together
usually somewhere between 4 and 16 for most of the fat that we consume and the
carbon atom is one that can make four connections so kind of like this the
carbon sits in the middle and then it can bond it can link with four different
things either four different atoms or four different groups of some sort so
all of this happens in the fat molecule so on the one end that carbon is going
to bind with three hydrogen's but then in the chain it's going to bind with
other carbons so if it binds with two other carbons and the fat is saturated
then that's going to leave each carbon to bind with two hydrogen's saying the
chain it binds with two carbons and two hydrogen's and that's what we call a
saturated fat if every carbon also has a full set of hydrogen atoms connected but
sometimes the carbons connect with a double bond meaning they use up two of
these connections between them and that only leaves them room to bind with one
more hydrogen instead of two and in nature virtually all the time these
hydrogen's are going to end up on the same side meaning called a cyst
transformation so what this means is that the molecule is going to make a
band and this is really important for the chemical properties and for the
melting point and for or what sort of nutrition properties
that fatty acid has so if it's a saturated fat then it's going to make a
straight line so if it has four carbons in it that's called butyrate acid and it
occurs in butter so butter has a combination has a mix of
different lengths but butyric acid makes that butter melt much more easily than
some of the longer chains so even though butter is a saturated fatty acid it has
a relatively low melting point that's why it melts if you rub it with your
finger for example the eight carbon length is more like a medium chain
triglyceride those are very common in coconut oil for example and if the fat
is entirely made up of long chains like the sixteen carbon chain then it's
called stearic acid which is basically candle wax this is also what most of the
beef fat is made up of that's why beef fat and candle wax are kind of similar
and they they're solid at room temperature so the shorter the length
the lower the melting point the easier it is to melt it well there's another
property that makes it melt easy and that's if it has a kink to it so the
straighter the molecule is the tighter they pack together it's like side by
side by side you can just pack them together and then they sort of stick and
it's harder to break them apart and then they have a higher melting point they
don't move as freely but if they have a double bond if they're unsaturated
they're gonna have a bend to them and now they don't pack together as well so
this would be an example of olive oil which is mono unsaturated olive oil also
called oleic acid then if it has two double bonds if it's
twice unsaturated then it's gonna pay even more bent if it has three double
bonds then it's going to be even more bent and so on and these molecules like
fish oil will have five and six double bonds so it's more almost like a circle
in configuration and that's why fish oil or flax oil is actually liquid in the
freezer it gets really thick but it's the liquid
in the freezer so what this means of course is like we said the saturated
fats are solid or semi-solid at room temperature while the polyunsaturated
fats are liquid at room temperature or even refrigerated so this makes them
useful for different things in the body so saturated fats are great for fuel
that's what the body primarily burns for fuel if it's available but the
polyunsaturated they are very reactive they're great for the body for certain
things they have signaling properties the body uses them for more specialized
functions but primarily in cell membranes because your cell membranes
need to be flexible and fluid and if they have saturated fats then they kind
of pack them together and the cell membranes are more like candle wax they
get really stiff and then the cell membranes can't communicate and have all
of these signaling properties that they're supposed to have so we do need
both the problem with polyunsaturated is that they are very reactive because this
double bond this bond is available it is not that hard to break and if we expose
that bond to heat or oxygen that we can break that so then these become very
reactive they become unstable and they become very susceptible to damage by
heat and oxygen and then the fat is called rancid and
now it becomes very destructive now it's basically a toxin to the body so that's
a little bit more about the the science behind it and why the fats work the way
that they do and why saturate a non saturated behave the way that they do I
made another video on the properties and what fats are best to eat for these
reasons so you can check that out right here so we need a variety of different
fats for different purposes so the saturated fats are great for fuel and
then we need a small amount of the specialized fats and these are what's
called the essential fatty acids and we need small amounts of them for
particular reasons such as membranes the DHA which is a 6-fold polyunsaturated
part of the fish oil is what the brain and the retina is primarily made up of
so it's a building block that gives the brain certain properties so we need a
little bit of these on an ongoing basis we can need a little bit more of the
saturated for fuel but we do need both of them the key is to understand that
the saturated fats are pretty stable they don't oxidize easily they're stable
at room temperature and the polyunsaturated are very sensitive to
heat and oxygen so they need great care in handling so that they're not
destroyed before we eat them if you enjoy content like this please remember
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