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What Are MUFAs? | Ask the Fitness Nerd

What’s a MUFA? The Fitness Nerd explains what this funny acronym means and why MUFAs are suddenly the rage among dieters.

Dear Fitness Nerd:

What are MUFAs? I keep hearing people talk about them, but I still haven’t quite figured out what they are. I know they are a type of fat, but I thought fats were unhealthy and should be avoided. Are they a supplement of some type like CLA? - Kayla R, (West Hollywood, CA)

MUFAs are an acronym for a “monounsaturated fatty acids” — a class of healthy fats found in foods like nuts and seeds, avocados, olives and certain vegetable oils. MUFAs are not typically taken as a supplement (as Conjugated linoleic acid or CLA often is), since they are plentiful in foods. 

MUFAs have gotten a lot of attention recently for three reasons:

1. MUFAs may help you lose weight.

There is some evidence that people who regularly consume MUFAs have lower body fat levels and are more successful at dropping body fat and weight than people who are on low-fat, carbohydrate rich diets.

This research flies in the face of  the conventional-wisdom that drove the low-fat craze of the 80s and 90s, which advised people to reduce their fat consumption as much as possible in order to lose weight, lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of stroke, high-blood pressure and heart disease. The latest research actually suggests that diets which are higher in healthy fats like MUFAs may be more effective at weight-control than low-fat diets.

2. MUFAs may reduce the risk of disease.

A growing body of research shows that MUFAs may not only help people lose fat, but that they also have protective properties that may lower the risk of developing certain diseases, including Type II Diabetes, heart disease, stroke and possibly certain types of cancers. MUFAs are also part of The Portfolio Diet, which is an approach to eating that combines MUFAs with other cholesterol-lowering foods like soy, plant sterols and soluble fiber from things like oatmeal and may reduce blood cholesterol-levels as effectively as prescription statin drugs.

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Avocado Oil | Healthy Food of the Day

Avocados Aren’t Just For Guacamole Anymore. The Next Time You Reach for a Healthy Fat, Think Avocado Oil.

When you think of avocados, you typically think of guacamole. Or, if you are me, you think of Kriste at the office who (in her own words) is “totally obsessed” with avocados and will eat them sliced, diced or on the “half-shell” when given the chance.

Once shunned because of their high fat content, avocados have been elevated to fitness food chic over the past few years, thanks to a growing body of research showing that eating more healthy fats from things like avocados, nuts and olive oil doesn’t necessarily translate into more body fat. In fact, studies have shown exactly the opposite: People who eat healthy fats seem to actually be less fat, have lower bad cholesterol levels and triglycerides and are less prone to heart disease and developing certain kinds of cancers.

And that’s great news for avocado lovers, since not only are avocados filled with healthy fats, but they are also loaded with fiber and vitamins and minerals. And, of course, they taste fantastic on everything from healthy tacos to sandwiches to straight out of the shell, like my friend Kriste prefers.

But what most people don’t realize is that avocados can also be pressed to make a delicious, mild vegetable oil that’s among nature’s richest sources of healthy, monounsaturated fatty acids (also known as MUFAs).  Even better, if you’re getting bored with the usual olive oil on your salads and crave something a little different, you might consider swapping in some avocado oil.

What Is Avocado Oil and Avocado Oil Extraction?

Avocado oil is pressed or extracted from either the fresh flesh or dried pulp of avocados. 

The best culinary grade avocado oil is produced by cold-pressing the oil from the fresh flesh of avocados, in a manner similar to how cold pressed olive oil is produced.  Avocado oil can also be extracted from the dehydrated pulp of avocados, either through pressing or chemical/solvent extraction (which is typically employed for avocado oil used as a base in cosmetics.)

The vegetable oil in culinary avocado oil typically comes in one of two forms: refined or unrefined.

Refined avocado oils will have a lighter color and a more mild flavor with a very high smoke point that makes it ideal not only for salads, but especially for light frying or sautéing.

The unrefined versions of avocado oil will be more cloudy, have a deeper green color and a deeper, more intense avocado flavor. Because unrefined avocado oils have more solids in them, they also have lower smoking points than refined avocado oils. This makes them ideal for salad dressings where a more intense flavor is desired or around other uses that don’t involve heating the oil — for instance as a dip for bread or as a finishing oil vegetables.  

Avocado oil has a mild, subtle scent that some people have described as similar to artichokes and celery, with the rich, persistent flavor — not surprisingly — of avocados. Again, the less refined the oil is, the more intense and deep the avocado flavor will be.

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Muesli Recipes: Make Your Own Homemade Muesli!

Muesli is an inexpensive and flavorful way to get your daily grains. Learn how to make homemade Muesli with these five easy recipes.

Okay, it has a funny sounding name. But if you are looking for a high-energy, whole-grain food that will also help you get your daily dose of healthy fats and soluble fiber, and fuel your training and workouts, you have to try a bowl of Muesli … or two bowls.

Store-bought Muesli can be expensive (a 1 lb, 18-serving bag, for instance, can cost nearly $5 dollars) so it really pays off to make it yourself. Also, making your own Muesli allows you to customize the recipe based on your own particular preferences. 

And making homemade muesli is also easier than making homemade granola, since you don’t have to bake the mixture in the oven. Basically, you take the Meusli recipe ingredients, toss them together in a bowl and bag it. That’s it. It’s really that simple.

But before we actually get to the Meusli recipes, let’s take a look at the history of this cereal, as well as the health benefits that make this a great fitness food.

The Muesli Story

Muesli (pronounced muse-lee) is a breakfast cereal that has been popular in Europe — especially Switzerland — for over 100 years. It’s made from raw, rolled whole grains like oats, barley, rye, triticale, and wheat and typically contains nuts and dried or fresh fruit.

Muesli was developed by the Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner around 1900 to serve to patients in his hospital in Zurich. The diet that Bircher-Benner prescribed to his patients was heavy on whole-grains and fresh fruits and vegetables, and Bircher-Benner came up with idea of Muesli after being served a similar dish during a hike in the Swiss Alps.

While popular in Switzerland and parts of Europe for decades, it wasn’t until the health food movement of the 1960s that this tasty and uber-nutritious cereal started to gain fans in the United States. Since then, Muesli has become much more widely available not only in health food stores, but also in mainstream markets and grocery stores.

In the late-80s, Kellogg even tried to cash-in on the healthy reputation of Muesli by developing a boxed, cold cereal version of muesli called Mueslix. Unfortunately, the cereal shared very little in common with the traditional Muesli recipe, and instead had more in common with Corn Flakes than with the whole-grain masterpiece from Switzerland. Kellogg still markets Mueslix in the US and Canada, although their version is a pale-imitation of the real deal.

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Dietary Fat: Five Myths About Fat | Diet Tips

Think eating less fat will make you thinner? Not necessarily. Answer Fitness debunks the five most common myths people have around dietary fat.

Navigating the sometimes contradictory research and information around dietary fat can make a person’s head spin. Should I eat more fat? Less fat? A different kind of fat? Here are the five most common myths around dietary fat:

Myth #1: Eating more fat makes you fatter

Not true.

Eating more calories than you burn makes you gain fat.

Whether those excess calories come from protein, carbohydrates or dietary fat, any calories that you eat above your daily energy requirements will get stored away as body fat. 

The issue with dietary fat is that it’s extremely calorie dense, meaning that it contains more calories per gram than other macro-nutrients like protein or carbohydrates. This means that gram-for-gram, foods with a higher fat content contain more calories (9 calories per gram of fat versus 4 calories per gram for carbohydrates and protein.)

So if you aren’t careful, you can end up eating more calories in foods with higher fat content, even though you are eating the same amount of food.

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The Skinny on Protein, Carbohydrates and Fats | Nutrition 101

The right combination of carbohydrates, protein and healthy fats is critical to reaching your diet and fitness goals. Learn how it all comes together on your plate.

You’ll often hear myself or fitness and nutrition experts discuss the importance of “balanced-meals” to people who are trying to stay fit and in-shape. But what is a balanced diet? And why is it so critical?

A balanced diet simply means that you provide your body with all of the basic nutrients that it needs to provide you with energy each day, as well as to repair and build tissue.

Even if you laid in bed all day, your body still requires around 1200 calories just to fuel basic functions like breathing, digestion, cellular repair and even thinking. The more active you, the more calories you need.

But calories alone are only part of the picture.

Your body also requires amino acids from protein and lipids from dietary fat to maintain, regenerate or repair tissue, whether that’s skeletal muscle, connective tissue, skin, or nervous tissue.

Protein, carbohydrates and fats are often referred to as “macro-nutrients” because your body needs large amounts of them to perform basic cellular functions.

“Micro-nutrients”, on the other hand, are things like vitamins and minerals, which your body uses in smaller amounts to maintain healthy, functioning cells, tissues and organs.

Let’s take a closer look at each macro-nutrient and the role it plays in remaining healthy and fit.
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