What are saturated fats?

Saturated Fat

Saturated fat is fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids have no double bonds between the carbon atoms of the fatty acid chain; hence, they are fully saturated with hydrogen atoms.

Fat that occurs naturally in living matter such as animals and plants is used as food for human consumption and contains varying proportions of saturated and unsaturated fat. Foods that contain a high proportion of saturated fat are butter, ghee, suet, tallow, lard, coconut oil, cottonseed oil, and palm kernel oil, dairy products (especially cream and cheese), meat, and some prepared foods.

The higher saturated fats such as coconut oil and cow butter are more solid at room temperature, are more stable during cooking, and have longer shelf lives than oils such as olive oil or other liquid vegetable oils. Hydrogenation of liquid vegetable oils increases their shelf life and makes them solid at room temperature. In this they are similar but not comparable to pure, unadulterated, saturated fat. Conversely, dehydrogenation converts saturated fats to unsaturated fats.1

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat

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Whether or not saturated fats are good or bad for you is a much disputed matter. While some say they are bad for you, actually, they are much better than unsaturated fats which break down forming free radicals in your body when heated because they contain double bonds. Saturated fats are stable as they contain single bonds - they don't break down to form free radicals when heated. So cooking with butter or coconut oil is a good idea & cooking with rape seed oil or olive oil is not such a good idea, although olive oil is great if you use it cold - as long as you don't heat it. Margarine is very bad for you.