All of the fats found in fresh whole Jamaican foods are healthy, good, and sometimes vital. It is wise to include a full spectrum of Jamaican food fats in your diet, which will work hard to keep you young looking and healthy. However, this is not the message that has been coming out of the mainstream media, and the reason for that is that we have built up an unhealthy fear and guilt complex about Jamaican food fat.

It is true that certain Jamaican foods are in fact bad for you; however, luckily it is easy to tell which they are. Jamaican food fatty acids have been linked to raising the “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and lowering the “good” cholesterol (HDL); many believe that body fat accumulated by eating Jamaican foods is very difficult to shift and the reason for that is that they are the result of processing Jamaican oil through hydrogenation. You can spot the presence of Jamaican food fats in a product because the hydrogenated food fats have to be listed in the ingredient panel. You can determine the amount of fat in a product. Simply add up the total of the fats listed in the product and then subtract that number from the total listed. However, it is far easier to simply avoid those foods that have hydrogenated Jamaican oil in them.

The other fat that is bad for you is rancid fat. This is fat that has been changed by light, moisture, heat, and oxygen. This type of fat contributes to all the aging and health problems that are associated with them. You might think at first, that it would be easy to avoid this one. However, not all rancid food fat can be detected by taste and smell. In fact, we have been conditioned to accept rancid Jamaica food fats. The reason for this is that some Jamaican butter is salty and helps to preserve and cover up the rancid taste. Although Jamaican butter is good for us, rancid Jamaican butter is not. That flax Jamaican oil in the refrigerator is liquid gold to some, but if it is rancid, it is worse than useless. We have to retrain our taste buds and noses to tell us the difference between the fresh fats from rancid ones. This is one reason for using unsalted rather than salted Jamaican butter.

This retraining can be done by finding stores that rotate their stock on the shelf so that no old products linger there, store their products properly, and sell their stock quickly. You should also check the expiration dates to help you find the freshest Jamaican foods.