Cholesters and Food

| Cholesterol is a fat that is part of our cells and cellular structures and is necessary for life. A part of cholesterol is synthesized by the body and another part is provided by food.

When we synthesize it or consume it in excess, it can lead to a health problem.

Cholesterol as a fat is only found in foods of animal origin (meat, eggs, fish, non-skimmed dairy). There is no food of plant origin that contains it. For all consumers it is important to know where cholesterol is found since the food industry brings products to the market "free in cholesterol" in foods that do not contain it by themselves. For example, olives "without cholesterol"; There is no olive with cholesterol because it is a food of plant origin. These health messages are used many times to make the product more expensive, confuse and do this without providing any health benefits.

In the same way, a phobia has been created around foods that contain cholesterol, even leading many people to do without certain foods and as a consequence unbalance their diet. And, on the other hand, cholesterol in food is not the one that most influences the cholesterol values ​​we have in our blood when we do an analysis. It is saturated fat and hydrogenated fat that most influence (in a negative sense) our cholesterol number and our risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases.

Within this section assigned as harmful foods due to their high cholesterol content, we find eggs, shellfish and Serrano ham. Numerous studies show that eggs, in addition to being a very complete food at a nutritional level, contains a substance called lecithin that helps reduce the absorption of cholesterol and that its consumption does not worsen the cholesterol we have in the blood or increase the risk of suffering from a cardiovascular disease Other studies show that seafood contains only modest amounts of cholesterol, while it contains marine sterols that inhibit cholesterol absorption. Serrano ham is rich in healthy fats and its cholesterol content is also modest.

Therefore, when talking about cholesterol present in food, it is necessary to know that not all foods that contain it are harmful to our health since the presence of other elements (sterols, stanols, antioxidants, fiber, unsaturated fats) influences that can improve the risk to our health.