Boost Your ‘Good Fats’

Excerpted From Pre­ven­tion Mag­a­zine, on MSNBC

Incor­po­rat­ing “good” unsat­u­rated fats into a fruit-veggie-lean-protein-whole-grain diet helped peo­ple with pre­di­a­betes reduce their risk of devel­op­ing full-blown type 2 by almost 60 per­cent, accord­ing to a land­mark gov­ern­ment study. And now, emerg­ing research points to monoun­sat­u­rated fatty acids (MUFAs) in par­tic­u­lar as poten­tial super­heroes for con­trol­ling blood sugar, reduc­ing insulin resis­tance, and fight­ing belly fat specif­i­cally vis­ceral belly fat, the dan­ger­ous kind found deep in your abdomen and strongly asso­ci­ated with pre­di­a­betes and diabetes.

Of course, you can’t sim­ply add lots of choco­late or hand­fuls of nuts to an unhealthy diet and expect great results. The key is to work right-size por­tions of oil, olives, nuts and seeds, avo­ca­dos, and dark choco­late into the mix of healthy foods you’ll eat at every meal.

Read the full arti­cle for a closer look at how these five fab foods help fight dia­betes and boost your health, plus some deli­cious recipes you can try today.

Good fats include:

1. Oils — Canola oil, flaxseed oil, olive oil, peanut oil, pesto sauce, saf­flower oil, sesame oil, soy­bean oil, sun­flower oil, wal­nut oil
2. Olives — Black olives, black olive tape­nade, green olives, green olive tapenade
3. Nuts and Seeds — Almonds, Brazil nuts, nat­ural peanut but­ter, dry-roasted cashews, dry-roasted peanuts, dry-roasted sun­flower seeds, hazel­nuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pine nuts, pis­ta­chios, roasted pump­kin seeds, sun­flower seeds, walnuts
4. Avo­ca­dos — Florida avo­cado, Hass avocado
5. Dark Choco­late — Dark or semi­sweet choco­late chips, shav­ings, or chunks—aim for cacao con­tent of 70 per­cent or higher