Treat your Heart this Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day! What better way to celebrate this love holiday than by doing something good for your heart. Did you know that certain foods help improve heart health? In fact, certain fat sources are key players in this role.

Unfortunately, fat often times gets a bad reputation for being bad for our health and is something that people avoid having in their diets. There are two types of fats that have proven beneficial for us: polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats. Both of these fat sources help to decrease bad cholesterol levels and improve our heart health when consumed in our diet. In addition, polyunsaturated fat sources provide us two essential fats: omega 3 and omega 6, which our body cannot make on its own.

Not only do fats help decrease your risk for heart disease and stroke, but they also help with absorbing many important vitamins. This is because there are four fat soluble vitamins: A, D, E, and K. Without adequate fat in our diets, we would not properly absorb these vitamins, no matter how much of the food sources we consume of them.

If these two reasons weren’t enough reason to enjoy some fat in your diet, fat is also known as the “satiety” nutrient. This means that it helps us to feel satisfied and to better listen to our fullness cues. Often times low fat diets cause us to have additional cravings because we are missing the fat that helps us find the satisfaction.

So on this Valentine’s Day, we hope you treat yourself and your heart with some of the following fat sources!

Monounsaturated Fats: Polyunsaturated Fats:

Olive oil Soybean oil

Canola oil Corn oil

Peanut oil Sunflower oil

Safflower oil Fatty Fish: Salmon, Mackerel, Herring, and Trout Sesame oil Walnuts

Avocados Sunflower Seeds

Nuts Soybeans

Seeds