omega 3 fats

By Helen Chow, ND, Dip Herb, UK-qualified Naturopath & Herbalist
Nutrition & Food Design Coach, Designer Realities Mind Coach

For years, we were told that fat made us fat.

Then the nutrition pendulum swung to the opposite side, and suddenly we were being encouraged to put butter in our coffee, pour cream over everything and add spoonfuls of oil to meals that already contained plenty of fat.

Neither extreme has served women particularly well.

Fat is not something you need to fear. It gives food flavour, helps a meal feel satisfying and allows your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Certain fats provide essential fatty acids that your body cannot manufacture for itself.

But that does not mean that every fat behaves identically—or that adding more fat is always better.

The sensible question is not: “Is fat good or bad?”

It is: “Which fat am I eating, what is it replacing, how much am I using—and does that suit my health and my goal?”

That is the conversation we are going to have here.

Quick answer: Which fats are healthiest after 50?

Base most of your fat intake around minimally processed foods and oils rich in unsaturated fats, such as extra-virgin olive oil, olives, avocado, oily fish, nuts and seeds where tolerated.

Use butter, ghee, coconut oil, santan, fatty meat and full-fat dairy thoughtfully rather than treating them as either forbidden poisons or unlimited health foods.

Avoid industrial trans fats and repeatedly heated or smoking oils.

If you want to lose body fat, remember that dietary fat is energy-dense. Enough can make a meal delicious and satisfying; continually adding extra butter, cream, oil and cheese can quietly prevent your body from drawing upon its stored fat. 

In this article

• What dietary fat does for you
• The four main types of fat
• The truth about saturated fat
• Omega-3 fats after 50
• Whole-food fats versus added oils
• Which fats work for different cooking methods
• Butter, ghee, coconut oil and santan
• Are seed oils inflammatory?
• Fat, satisfaction and weight loss
• How to choose fats without counting everything
• Frequently asked questions
• A simple healthy-fat action plan

Fat is part of a nourishing meal—not the entire meal

A good meal does not need to be fat-free. Nor does it need to be swimming in fat.

In our cornerstone article, I showed you what a nourishing meal can look like after 50. It normally starts with a meaningful source of protein, then adds vegetables or other plant foods, an individually appropriate amount of carbohydrate and enough fat to provide flavour and satisfaction.

Some of that fat may already be present in your food.

Salmon, eggs, lamb, beef, cheese, yoghurt, nuts, seeds, olives and avocado all contain fat. If your meal includes one of these, you may need less additional cooking oil or dressing than you imagine.

This is the first distinction you need to remember: Fat naturally contained in a nourishing food and fat poured freely from a bottle are not always equivalent in practice.

Both count, but the whole food may also give you protein, vitamins, minerals or fibre.

What does dietary fat actually do?

Dietary fat helps:

• provide energy
• form part of cell membranes
• supply essential omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids
• carry flavour and improve the pleasure of eating
• support the absorption of vitamins A, D, E and K
• and slow digestion sufficiently to help some meals feel more satisfying

Fat contains approximately nine calories per gram, compared with around four calories per gram for protein or carbohydrate. You don’t have to count every calorie, but this does explain why a seemingly innocent drizzle can become a substantial amount of energy.

One tablespoon of oil may disappear into a pan or dressing without looking like much food at all. That does not make the oil “bad”. It simply means that quantity still matters.

Meet the main fats without the chemistry lesson

Most foods contain a mixture of different fatty acids. We classify them according to the type that predominates.

The name of the fat matters, but so does its source.

A piece of oily fish is not simply “fat”. It also supplies protein, selenium, vitamin B12 and long-chain omega-3 fats.

An avocado brings fibre and potassium. Plain yoghurt may provide protein and calcium. Extra-virgin olive oil contains biologically active plant compounds.

This is why judging a food from one nutrient alone can become quite misleading.

Monounsaturated fats: A useful everyday foundation

Cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil is one of my favourite examples of a fat that can be both delicious and practical.

Use it in a Greek salad, spoon it over roasted vegetables, combine it with lemon and herbs, or use a sensible quantity in Mediterranean-style cooking.

Olives, avocado and peanuts also provide monounsaturated fat, although allergies and individual tolerance always come first.

Traditional food cultures understood flavour long before we started dividing food into nutrient categories. A few olives beside a meal, olive oil with grilled fish or avocado alongside eggs can make a meal feel complete without turning it into an oil-delivery system.

The important word is alongside. Healthy fat should support the meal, not displace the protein and other nourishment you need.

Omega-3 fats after 50

Omega-3 fats are polyunsaturated fats with important roles in cell membranes and normal body function. The most useful food sources of the long-chain omega-3 fats EPA and DHA include:

• sardines
• mackerel
• herring
• salmon
• trout
• anchovies
• and certain other oily fish and seafood

Plant foods such as flaxseed, chia seeds, walnuts and rapeseed oil supply ALA, another omega-3 fat. Your body can convert some ALA into EPA and DHA, but the conversion is limited and varies between people.

If you eat fish, try to include oily fish regularly rather than assuming a generic fish-oil capsule can repair an otherwise poor diet.

If you don’t eat fish, suitable algae-derived EPA or DHA may be worth discussing with a qualified practitioner. This is particularly important if you take anticoagulant or antiplatelet medication, are preparing for surgery or have a bleeding disorder.

And please remember that “nutritious” doesn’t automatically mean “right for you”. If fish, shellfish, nuts or seeds cause an allergic or digestive reaction, you need an alternative—not encouragement to keep eating them because they appear on a healthy-food list.

Saturated fat: Can we have an honest conversation?

Saturated fat is where nutrition conversations often become unnecessarily angry.

One side tells you that butter, meat and coconut oil will destroy your health. The other side tells you that saturated fat has been completely exonerated and you may eat as much as you please.

The evidence supports neither extreme.

Saturated fat tends to raise LDL cholesterol, although the size of the response varies between individuals and between foods. LDL particles are involved in the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, so persistently elevated LDL—or the related measurement ApoB—should not simply be dismissed.

Major health guidelines continue to recommend limiting saturated fat and replacing some of it with unsaturated fat. The word replacing is crucial.

If you remove butter but replace it with biscuits, sugar or refined starch, you have not necessarily improved your meal. If you replace some butter, coconut oil or fatty processed meat with olive oil, oily fish, nuts, seeds or avocado, the outcome is more likely to be favourable.

The food itself matters, too

Butter, cheese, yoghurt, beef and coconut oil may all contain saturated fat, but they are not identical foods.

Their physical structure—or “food matrix”—and their accompanying nutrients can affect how they are digested and how they relate to health outcomes. Fermented dairy, for example, cannot automatically be judged as though it were a spoonful of butter.

That nuance is valuable. It does not mean saturated fat has become irrelevant.

My practical position is this:

• You don’t need to fear every gram of saturated fat.
• You don’t need to remove every traditional food containing it.
• You should not assume that butter, ghee or coconut oil is unlimited.
• Your overall pattern matters more than one isolated ingredient.
• Your cardiovascular history and blood results matter too.

If your LDL cholesterol or ApoB rises substantially after increasing butter, coconut oil, cream, cheese or fatty meat, take that information seriously. Your body’s response is more useful than an argument on social media.

What about butter and ghee?

Butter brings flavour. Ghee is butter with most of the water and milk solids removed, which makes it useful for certain cooking methods and traditional Indian, Sri Lankan and South Asian dishes.

Ghee also contains less lactose and milk protein than butter, although it is not safe to assume that every person with a severe dairy allergy will tolerate it.

Both butter and ghee are rich in saturated fat. That means you can enjoy them as culinary fats without pretending that the nutritional evidence has transformed them into compulsory superfoods.

A small amount of butter melting over vegetables or a spoonful of ghee used to build the flavour of a curry is very different from adding large quantities to every meal because someone said fat does not count on a low-carbohydrate diet.

Use them for the flavour they contribute. You don’t need to make them the foundation of every meal.

Coconut oil and santan

Having spent time in Asia, I know that coconut is not merely an internet wellness trend. Coconut milk—santan—belongs naturally in many Malaysian, Singaporean, Indonesian, Thai, Indian and Sri Lankan dishes.

A beautiful curry made with santan is part of a cultural food tradition. It shouldn’t be stripped of its identity and judged as though it were a spoonful of coconut oil added to coffee for medicinal purposes.

But cultural history does not make the quantity nutritionally invisible.

Coconut oil is particularly high in saturated fat. Controlled trials indicate that it generally raises LDL cholesterol more than non-tropical plant oils, even though it may also raise HDL.

So enjoy coconut because it belongs in the dish and makes the food delicious—not because marketing has persuaded you that unlimited coconut oil melts body fat or protects your heart.

We’ll explore this properly in a future article: Coconut Oil After 50: Healthy Cooking Fat or Overhyped?

Are seed oils really inflammatory?

You may have heard that seed oils are toxic, inflammatory or responsible for nearly every modern illness. That is a much bigger claim than the human evidence supports.

Oils such as rapeseed, sunflower, sesame, soybean, peanut and corn oil contain different mixtures of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. When they replace fats rich in saturated fat, they generally lower LDL cholesterol.

Omega-6 linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid. Your body needs it; it is not automatically inflammatory simply because its name contains “omega-6”.

However, that doesn’t mean every food containing seed oil is healthy.

Many ultra-processed foods are rich in refined starch, sugar, salt and calories as well as inexpensive oils. Deep-fried foods may also contain oil that has been repeatedly heated. Blaming the seed oil alone ignores the entire food and how it was prepared.

My practical distinction is:

• a little sesame oil flavouring a Chinese dish
• rapeseed oil used in home cooking
• or sunflower oil in a homemade dressing

is not the same eating pattern as consuming crisps, pastries, commercial fried foods and ultra-processed snacks throughout the day.

Choose a fresh oil appropriate for your cooking method, store it properly and don’t repeatedly heat it until it is dark, degraded or smoking. No food war is required.

Which fat should you cook with?

You don’t need a cupboard containing fifteen expensive oils. Two or three carefully chosen fats will cover most home cooking.

Don’t cook by smoke point alone

Smoke point is useful, but it is not the sole measure of whether an oil is suitable. Freshness, storage, fatty-acid composition, antioxidant content, temperature and length of cooking all influence stability.

For everyday home cooking:

• don’t leave oil unattended until it smokes
• discard badly scorched oil
• avoid repeatedly reusing deep-frying oil
• keep oils away from heat and bright light
• buy delicate oils in quantities you will actually use

Traditional fats can stay in traditional food

• A French woman need not abandon butter completely.
• A Greek family does not need to replace olive oil with a fashionable imported fat.
• An Indian or Sri Lankan cook can use ghee where its flavour matters.
• A Malaysian curry can still contain santan.
• A Chinese dish may use peanut, rapeseed or sesame oil.
• Japanese food may include oily fish and sesame.
• Middle Eastern meals may draw upon tahini and olive oil.

The aim is not to flatten every cuisine into grilled chicken and a dry salad.

Instead, consider:

• How much fat does the complete dish contain?
• Is the meal built around adequate protein?
• Is the fat adding pleasure, or merely extra energy?
• Are you using several rich ingredients at once?
• Does the portion suit your appetite and goal?
• How do your digestion, blood lipids and body respond?

We can honour traditional food while adjusting quantity and balance.

Whole-food fat or added fat?

When practical, let some of your fat arrive inside a nourishing food.

For example:

• sardines rather than fish oil poured from a bottle
• olives rather than unlimited olive oil
• avocado rather than avocado oil
• plain yoghurt rather than a cream-based sauce
• nuts or seeds rather than a large pool of nut or seed oil—where tolerated
• eggs, fish or meat that bring protein as well as fat

This isn’t a rigid rule. Olive oil and other cooking fats remain useful. It’s simply easier to keep a meal nourishing when fat is not continually added from four directions.

Imagine a meal containing fatty meat, cheese, butter, cream sauce and an oily dressing. Every ingredient may be acceptable alone, but together they create a very different meal.

Fat and satisfaction

Fat can improve satisfaction, especially when a very low-fat meal leaves you prowling through the kitchen an hour later. But satiety is not produced by fat alone.

Protein is especially important after 50 because it helps support muscle and provides substantial staying power. Our protein guide explains how much women may need, while the protein-first meals article shows you how to put it onto a real plate.

Fibre, food volume, texture, flavour, eating speed and your individual glucose response also affect how satisfied you feel.

If you’re hungry after meals, don’t automatically add more butter or oil. Ask:

• Was there enough protein?
• Was it a proper meal or a collection of snacks?
• Did I eat slowly enough to notice it?
• Was the carbohydrate portion appropriate for me?
• Did I include food I actually enjoyed?
• Am I genuinely hungry—or exhausted, stressed or seeking comfort?

Why unlimited fat can stall fat loss

This is the part that sometimes gets lost in lower-carbohydrate conversations.

Reducing carbohydrate can help some women manage hunger, blood glucose and insulin resistance. It may make it easier to eat less without feeling deprived.

But a lower-carbohydrate diet does not make unlimited dietary fat disappear.

If your body is receiving all the energy it requires from butter, cheese, cream, oils, coconut products, nuts and fatty drinks, it has less reason to draw upon the fat stored around your waist, liver and other tissues.

Nutritional ketosis tells you that your body is producing ketones from fat. It does not tell you whether that fat came primarily from your body or from your breakfast.

If your goal is to lose body fat without losing muscle, keep protein adequate and use enough dietary fat to make meals satisfying—but do not continually manufacture extra “fat opportunities”.

Common examples include:

• butter or coconut oil added to coffee
• oil poured freely rather than measured
• cheese eaten while preparing dinner
• nuts consumed directly from a large bag
• cream added to several drinks
• fatty sauces over an already fatty meal
• and “keto treats” combining fat with sweeteners

You don’t necessarily need to remove these forever. First, become aware of them.

A simple way to choose your fats

Try this five-step approach.

1. Begin with the complete meal

Start with protein and build the rest of the meal around it. Do not begin by asking how much oil, butter or cream you can add.

2. Notice the fat already present

Salmon, eggs, lamb, cheese, avocado and nuts already bring fat. A leaner protein may need more added fat than a naturally fatty one.

3. Choose the fat for a reason

Use olive oil for its flavour and versatility, ghee to build a curry, sesame oil to finish a Chinese dish or butter where butter genuinely makes the food better.

4. Match quantity to your goal

If you are maintaining weight and eating well, your comfortable amount may differ from that of a woman actively trying to reduce excess body fat.

If you are underweight, losing weight unintentionally or struggling to eat enough, being overly restrictive with fat may be the wrong approach.

5. Review your response

Look at your appetite, digestion, body-composition trend and cardiovascular markers.

You can also consider how the fat fits with your personal carbohydrate tolerance. A meal combining large quantities of refined carbohydrate and added fat is very different from a balanced meal containing protein, vegetables and a considered amount of fat.

Your one-week healthy-fat check

For one week, simply observe:

• Which cooking fats do I use?
• How much do I pour?
• Which foods already contain fat?
• Am I combining several rich fats in one meal?
• Do my meals contain enough protein?
• Does added fat genuinely keep me satisfied?
• Am I using butter, ghee or coconut oil for flavour—or from habit?
• Are ultra-processed foods contributing more fat than my home cooking?
• Am I eating oily fish or another considered omega-3 source?
• Does my current intake fit whether I am losing, maintaining or trying to gain weight?

This is an observation exercise, not a test you can fail. Small changes made deliberately are more useful than another set of frightening food rules.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should women avoid saturated fat completely after 50?

No. Completely eliminating saturated fat is neither necessary nor realistic.

The more useful approach is to avoid letting butter, ghee, coconut oil, fatty processed meat, cream and cheese dominate your diet. Where practical, replace some saturated fat with olive oil, oily fish, avocado, nuts, seeds or other unsaturated-fat sources you tolerate.

Your cardiovascular risk, LDL cholesterol and ApoB may justify a more individual conversation with your healthcare professional.

Is butter healthier than margarine?

It depends on what you mean by margarine.

Old-fashioned hard margarines made with partially hydrogenated oils could contain harmful industrial trans fats. Many modern soft vegetable-oil spreads no longer contain those oils and are lower in saturated fat than butter.

Read the ingredients rather than relying upon the word “natural”. Butter is a traditional food, but traditional does not mean unlimited.

Is ghee healthier than butter?

Ghee has culinary advantages. Removing the water and milk solids makes it more suitable for certain cooking methods, and some people tolerate it better than butter.

However, ghee is still rich in saturated fat. It is not automatically more heart-healthy because it is traditional or lactose-reduced.

Is olive oil safe for cooking?

Yes. Extra-virgin olive oil is suitable for dressings, sautéing and many ordinary roasting applications.

Don’t deliberately heat any oil until it smokes. For prolonged very-high-temperature cooking, you may prefer a refined olive, rapeseed, peanut or avocado oil.

Should I avoid all seed oils?

No convincing human evidence shows that ordinary culinary use of seed oils causes widespread inflammation. The more important distinction is between a fresh oil used sensibly in home cooking and an ultra-processed or repeatedly deep-fried food.

Is coconut oil good for weight loss?

Coconut oil does not bypass energy balance. Adding it to an existing diet can add substantial energy, and it is high in saturated fat.

Use coconut oil or santan where the flavour belongs rather than taking it as a fat-loss remedy.

How much fat should I eat?

There is no single ideal gram target for every woman.

Your total energy requirements, medical history, body-composition goal, appetite, carbohydrate intake and food preferences all matter. Concentrate first on fat quality, adequate protein, real meals and the amount of added fat you are using.

What if I am too thin or losing weight unintentionally?

Your needs are different from those of a woman trying to lose excess body fat.

Fat can help increase the energy content of meals without creating enormous portions. However, unexplained weight loss, poor appetite or difficulty maintaining weight deserves medical assessment rather than being managed with oils alone.

We want your food to help you build your next healthy years, and that includes preserving muscle, strength and adequate nourishment.

From the Gourmet Sifu Kitchen

Health Sifu tells you why. Gourmet Sifu  shows you how to make it delicious.

Future Gourmet Sifu recipe opportunities for this article:

• Mediterranean sardines with lemon, herbs and a measured olive-oil dressing;
• Malaysian chicken and pumpkin curry with a thoughtfully balanced amount of santan;
• and a ghee-scented lamb and vegetable curry in which the ghee provides flavour without overwhelming the meal.

These are future recipe opportunities rather than live Gourmet Sifu links.

A Health Sifu Note

I’ve eaten and cooked with olive oil, butter, ghee and santan across very different food cultures. Each one can make food taste wonderful.

I don’t believe you need to banish the foods you love—or pledge allegiance to one fashionable cooking fat.

Choose the fat that suits the dish. Notice how much you use. Let protein and nourishment lead the meal. Pay attention to your own appetite, body composition and health markers.

The best fat isn’t the one that wins the loudest argument online. It’s the one used intelligently within a way of eating that genuinely supports you.

Health Sifu
Make Smarter Choices
Consciously. Deliberately.

Scientific References & Further Reading

Saturated Fatty Acid and Trans-Fatty Acid Intake for Adults and Children — World Health Organization, 2023

The WHO recommends keeping saturated fat below 10% of total energy and trans fat below 1%, with replacement by polyunsaturated fat, monounsaturated fat from plant sources or fibre-rich carbohydrates. The emphasis is on replacement, not simply removing one food and filling the space with refined starch.

Reduction in Saturated Fat Intake for Cardiovascular Disease — Cochrane Review, Hooper and colleagues, 2020

This review of long-term trials found that reducing saturated fat reduced combined cardiovascular events. The benefit was clearer when saturated fat was replaced with polyunsaturated fat or suitable carbohydrates, illustrating why the replacement food matters.

Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory — American Heart Association

This extensive evidence review explains why replacing saturated fat with unsaturated vegetable oils can lower LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular risk. It also explores coconut oil and common misunderstandings about fat.

Fats in Foods— American Heart Association

A practical, accessible guide to monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated and trans fats. This is one of the more useful resources for translating fat science into shopping and cooking choices.

The Effect of Coconut Oil Consumption on Cardiovascular Risk Factors — Neelakantan, Seah and van Dam, Circulation, 2020

This systematic review and meta-analysis found that coconut oil raised LDL cholesterol compared with non-tropical vegetable oils. It supports enjoying coconut as a culinary food rather than promoting it as a cardiovascular remedy.

Randomised Trial of Coconut Oil, Olive Oil or Butter on Blood Lipids— Khaw and colleagues, BMJ Open, 2018

This short-term trial found that butter increased LDL compared with coconut and olive oil, while coconut oil did not significantly increase LDL compared with olive oil. It is a helpful reminder that individual trials may differ and should be considered alongside the broader evidence.

Ask the Expert: Healthy Fats— Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

A friendly, practical explanation of why unsaturated fats from foods such as fish, nuts and plant oils are preferable everyday choices—and why replacing fats matters more than embracing an indiscriminate low-fat diet.

Trans Fat— US Food and Drug Administration

The FDA explains what partially hydrogenated oils are, why industrial trans fats raise LDL cholesterol and the regulatory steps taken to remove their principal source from the US food supply.