Saturated fats for us dummies!

For all youse guys out there who've ever wondered about that term 'saturated fats', here's the real low down.

Think of your body as a finely tuned gasoline engine and think of saturated fats as engine oil gunk! When you eat certain foods (like all the foods us men normally like to eat), it's the same as adding gunk to your engine oil. Pretty soon you'll note that the oil pressure light is going on pretty much all the time! And, that's not a good thing, buddy.

Now, while you can always change your engine oil and make things right, you really can't do that to your body, as draining out all your blood is generally terminal. But, what you can do is to develop a strategy to start diluting the gunk by eating certain foods like veggies, fruits, whole grains and nuts while hitting McDonald's maybe a little bit less often. If ya just gotta eat some meat, go for the lean stuff like skinless chicken or fish!

So how much meat is too much? Here's a good rule of thumb. Take the amounts that generally satisfy you and then cut them in half. That would be all red meats, butter, potato chips and the like. Sub in a serving of broccoli or a salad or beans instead. Keep that up and your 'engine' will likely run for a long time!