Unsaturated fatty acids ( plant fats ), such as polyunsaturates and monounsaturates are considered the "good" fats to have in your diet because they don't increase your blood cholesterol directly, while saturated fatty acids ( animal fats ) and trans fats ( which is a type of fat sometimes formed during food processing ) are considered the "bad" fats to have in your diet - bad because they increase the bad cholesterol ....
That's right, saturated fat and trans fats contain dietary cholesterol, but more importantly, these bad fats are also the food that the body loves to make cholesterol from as well.
So, removing the fat off your meat, can greatly help to reduce your bad - ldl - blood cholesterol level.
However, not all saturated fats are bad for you. Stearic acid is a saturated fat that is actually good for you. When taken in moderation, stearic acid (found in lean meat and in genuine dark chocolate) can improve your cholesterol ratio and lower ldl cholesterol. However, eating to much of it can kill you too :(
Trans fats have been found to be the most dangerous fat for cholesterol levels to date. Trans Fats raise total cholesterol levels, raise the LDL bad cholesterol and lower the HDL good cholesterol. It is believed trans fats can double the risk of coronary disease in women through it's effect on cholesterol.
Trans fats are intentionally made in our foods - hydrogen gas reacts with oil under pressure in food processing to form the trans fats which increase the shelf life of the product.
Trans fats can be found in cookies / biscuits, crackers, icing, potato chips / crisps, corn chips, margarine, microwave popcorn.
Unfortunately, for trying to control cholesterol, trans fats and the amount of trans fats are not normally shown in the ingredients listed on products.
However, on a cholesterol controlled diet, these products - except for perhaps small amounts of margarine - are seldom consumed. So for those of us with a cholesterol problem, our low cholesterol diets protect us from them anyway.
This page is about dietary fat and the part such fats play in the production of human cholesterol. Human cholesterol is also a fat, and we have several different kinds of cholesterol fats in our bodies. So be aware, that just as some dietary fats are good and bad, some of our cholesterol fats are also good and bad. Dietary fat is NOT the same thing as human cholesterol fat.