List of Monounsaturated Fatty Foods

Health-conscious individuals seeking an alternative to unhealthy trans fats and saturated fats should consider consuming monounsaturated fats instead. Monounsaturated fats represent healthier alternatives because they help reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke by regulating the levels of bad cholesterol (known as LDL) in the blood. Eating a diet rich in monounsaturated fats is easy when you know which foods to consume.

Olive oil

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends that people ingest about 2 tablespoons of olive oil every day to reduce your risk of developing heart disease. The best way to consume olive oil is to use it as a substitute for saturated fats, such as butter and animal fats. Although several forms of olive oil exist, choose extra virgin or virgin olive oils because they represent the least processed of all varieties. They also contain high levels of polyphenols, potent antioxidants necessary for healthy hearts. Incorporate olive oil into your nutrition by using it as cooking oil or drizzling it over salad.

Nuts

Snacking on almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and macadamian nuts may decrease your risk of heart disease by 30 to 50 percent. By lowering LDL levels, nuts reduce the accumulation of plaque in narrow blood vessels that can cause heart attacks and strokes. Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) recommends eating 4 to 5 servings of nuts each week to reap the health benefits associated with nuts. Snack on nuts instead of potato chips or add them to muffin and cake recipes. Keep a bowl handy while watching television or bring a bag to the movies. Sprinkle them on your salad or add them to sauces. For optimal benefit, avoid roasted and salted nuts, since processing removes nutrition and salt adds unwanted sodium.

Sunflower Seeds

Packed with nutrients, sunflower seeds contain high levels of monounsaturated fats that lower cholesterol and support many vital biological functions. Almost 90 percent of the fat contained in sunflower seeds is unsaturated, an important proportion in diets designed to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). A study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health demonstrated that subjects who increased their monounsaturated fat intake by 5 percent reduced their risk of CHD by 24 percent. Incorporate sunflower seeds into your diet by snacking on handfuls, adding them to baked goods, sprinkling them on low-fat yogurt or use them to replace croutons in a salad.

Avocado

Although an avocado looks small, it packs a high amount of fat into its petite design. Consider that a California avocado contains 24 grams of fat; 17 of those grams come from monounsaturated fat, responsible for lowering LDL and raising good cholesterol (HDL) levels. Avocados also contain lutein, necessary for eye health, and folate, beneficial to pregnant women. In fact, the high fat content allows the absorption of other nutrients, like lutein and folate, into the body. Try mashing an avocado and using it in recipes as a substitute for butter or heavy cream. Or, place avocado slices in a salad, sandwich or hamburger.