Healthy fats

Part 2: Fat is best for diabetics

All body cells require a continuous supply of various fatty acids. If insufficient are supplied from food, the body tries to make them from sugar. This causes blood sugar levels to fall, you feel very hungry and eat more, generally of the wrong things - and compromise your health.

Fat also has a satiety value: it takes longer to digest and stops you feeling hungry. Eat a hundred calories less fat at a meal and you will probably feel hungry so quickly that you will eat three times as many calories - in the form of sugary or starchy foods, because they are convenient.

It seems that the gut's nutrient-measuring system works so well with fat that it is difficult, if not impossible, to eat too much of it. Try and you will make yourself sick.

But for the same reason, eating fat stops you eating too much in total. If your body needs 10 grams of fat, your appetite will not be satisfied until you have consumed those 10 grams of fat.

If you eat those 10 grams as 25 grams (1 oz) of Cheddar cheese, you will take in about 125 calories. If you eat them as wholemeal bread thinly spread with a very low-fat spread, you will need to eat about eight slices - a total of over 500 calories!