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The Fat Factor: Keeping Track of Fat

Your body needs some fat to function properly. Fat provides energy for daily activities and helps supply important nutrients for your body. But eating too much fat increases your risk of heart disease, some types of cancer, overweight, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.

Managing the amount of fat you eat involves balance and moderation. Any day that you choose moderate amounts of foods that are high in fat, you need to balance these with plenty of low-fat foods. For example, if you treat yourself to a high-fat breakfast of bacon and pancakes, you should choose lower-fat foods and have fewer foods from the tip of they pyramid at other meals that day. On the other hand on days when your breakfast consists of cereal, skim milk, and fruit or juice, you've eaten very little fat. This means that you could include a higher-fat treat, like chocolate, later in the day.

More Chocolate, Less Fat
Although chocolate candy is high in fat, foods made with cocoa powder and chocolate syrup can allow you to enjoy more of the taste of chocolate without eating too much fat. Cocoa powder and chocolate syrup can also help add variety to your eating pattern. For example, you could make low-fat brownies from a recipe that uses cocoa powder, substituting applesauce or yogurt for the oil. You can also use cocoa and chocolate syrup to add to your enjoyment of foods from the other food groups in the pyramid, without adding fat. Adding cocoa to hot cereal gives a simple breakfast pizzazz. Chocolate syrup mixed with yogurt makes a tasty dip for fruit. And chocolate syrup blended with fat-free cream cheese is a great spread for breads and crackers.

Commercial chocolate-flavored foods that are low in fat include breakfast cereals, graham crackers, pudding mix, and hot cocoa mix. Low-fat chocolate milk is an alternative for children or adults who don't like plain milk. It contains all the nutrients found in plain milk, including calcium.

Food Labels Can Help
The Nutrition Facts panel on food package labels can help you keep track of the amount of fat you eat. The % Daily Value for fat gives you a rough idea of how much fat you'll get from one serving of a particular food, based on a 2,000-calorie reference diet. (It is important to remember that you may require more or fewer than 2,000 calories, depending on your age, activity level, and sex. Also, be careful to check that the serving size on the label is the amount you would usually eat.) For example, a 1.4 ounce bar of milk chocolate has a % Daily Value for fat of 19%. In other words, the chocolate bar contains about one-fifth of your daily fat allowance if you eat about 2,000 calories per day.

Descriptions on package labels can also help you find lower-fat foods. Foods that re marked "fat-free" have virtually no fat (less than 1/2 gram fat per serving). Foods described as "low-fat" have no more than 3 grams of fat (about 1/2 teaspoon) per serving. And "reduced-fat" foods must have at least 25% less fat than the traditional food.