Do you have questions about nutrition? Send them to us at comer@lavanguardia.es, our nutritionist Aitor Sánchez will answer all your questions.
Should I stop eating banana if I want to lose weight? (María González, reader)
Hello Maria,
It is not a good choice at all to restrict fruit when losing weight, whether it is all fruit in general or bananas in particular.
This myth is due to the fact that many people think that bananas are a high-calorie fruit. The confusion over its information has reached such a point that there are even people who think that it is a very fatty fruit, which is completely false given that it does not even have 1% fat in its composition.
And even if it were true that it is a caloric food or even that it has a high fat content, it would not be relevant to recommend or discourage it. What we do in these cases is see how the consumption of different foods is associated and correlated with the loss or gain of body fat. Not everything is a question of how many calories a food has, we must also take into account what it generates in our body: if it satisfies us or, on the contrary, makes us hungrier, if we take advantage of all its energy or if more of it is wasted, if interferes with others due to its high amount of fiber…
The recommendations are not as simplistic as we are often led to believe. From this point of view, I remember that fruit is the best dessert option that we can have in most cases and it is also a fantastic snack to consume between meals. Advising against its consumption or even instilling fear about eating fruit is an absolute mistake, I insist, especially if we are talking about body fat loss goals.
Is the fat in Iberian ham healthy? (Juan Manuel López, reader)
Hi Juan Manuel,
We could not classify bacon as a healthy fat in itself, especially because when we compare sources of fat we have to do so in a context where there are many options to choose from.
The healthiest sources of fat in our diet are virgin olive oil, nuts and seeds, some fruits such as avocado, and oily fish. Meat fat is not usually considered healthy, even if it comes from the best options.
The pork industry in general, and the ham industry in particular, has for years created an image around the fat in ham, trying to sell it as very healthy. Atrocities have been said such as that an Iberian pig is an olive tree with legs. This is not at all the case and it is still a fat to limit and not as recommended as sources that are healthy.
What is true is that animals incorporate fatty acids from the food they consume into their bodies, exactly the same as humans do. Thus, a pig that has been fed acorns will have a much better lipid profile in its meat than those that have been fed low-quality feed.
That an animal has a better diet than average does not necessarily make that fat healthy, just as a cookie made with better oil does not directly make it healthy.
In the specific case of ham, it would also be necessary to take into account not only that the fat is not entirely healthy in itself, but that the rest of the product has other drawbacks as it is processed red meat: it has nitrites in its composition and also a high salt content. For all these reasons, ham is still considered a sausage, and it is not advisable to abuse it.
