The growing healthy lifestyle and the awareness about what we eat have altered our eating habits, but also made us fastidious with other products that are actually healthy. One of them it´s the Spanish Ham.
When following a diet based on your body needs and with exercise, the consumption of ham it´s recommended. Its controversy it´s due to its fat.
We should know a little more about it before understanding the properties of the ham:
We can find two different types of fat: Satured & Unsaturated
- The first one can be divided into Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated fats. The first ones can be find liquid at room temperature and it is known for improving the blood cholesterol levels and stabilize heart rhythms among others properties. You can find them in vegetable oils, nuts and seeds.
- The Polyunsaturated fats can be found in corn, soybean, walnuts and fish. Those fats are not made by our own body so that´s why we need to consume them. Sadly, most people don´t eat enough of them.
Saturated fats, typically solid at room temperature, are in all foods; mainly in animal ones. Healthy foods like vegetables, nuts or chicken indeed include them, but in much less quantity that the ones that can be found in cheese, industrial baking and fast food.
Although, cutting saturated fats from our diet will have no benefit. Replacing them with unsaturated ones instead had been shown to lower blood cholesterol.
More than 50% of the fat in Iberian Ham is unsaturated fat, even more if it´s an Acorn-fed Iberian Ham which it´s also rich in antioxidants.
Oleic acid, found in acorn-fed pigs has cholesterol regulating properties. Raising the production of HDL (good cholesterol) and lowering the LDL (bad cholesterol). So, a moderate consume of ham helps maintain the correct cholesterol levels and prevent cardiovascular disease.
Other properties of this delicacy is its nutritional content, rich in vitamins B, iron, phosphorous, potassium and magnesium.Ham can also be you ally in certain diets where a higher intake of protein is needed.
Thus, ham is apart from being part of the Mediterranean diet, an essential ingredient of a balanced and healthy diet.
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