Spot the fats that raise your cholesterol

Lowering cholesterol isn't about avoiding fat altogether — it's about the kind of fat. Saturated and trans fats tend to raise LDL ('bad') cholesterol, while unsaturated fats from olive oil, rapeseed, nuts and oily fish can actually help. A product's total fat figure tells you very little on its own; the breakdown is what counts.

That's why two snacks with the same total fat can pull your cholesterol in opposite directions. Working that out means reading both the nutrition breakdown and the oils in the ingredient list — more than most people have time to do mid-shop.

Palm oil and palm kernel oil are high in saturated fat and extremely common — in spreads, biscuits, chocolate, ready meals and countless processed products, often just listed as 'vegetable oil' or 'vegetable fat'. Coconut oil, despite its health halo, is also very high in saturated fat.

Trans fats are the worst offenders. The phrase to watch for is 'partially hydrogenated' oil — an industrially altered fat that raises LDL and lowers HDL. Although many countries have restricted it, it still appears in some imported and long-life products. Processed and cured meats add another saturated-fat load. PickEat flags all of these on the label.

The flip side is just as important. Soluble fibre — from oats, beans, lentils and many fruits — helps lower cholesterol, and foods fortified with plant sterols or stanols are designed specifically for this. Unsaturated fats from nuts, seeds, olive and rapeseed oil are the fats to favour.

PickEat doesn't only warn you off the bad choices; by reading the full picture it helps you recognise the heart-smarter option when two products sit side by side, so better choices become the easy default.

Improving your cholesterol rarely comes from one dramatic change — it comes from dozens of small swaps repeated over weeks. Choosing the spread made with rapeseed oil over the one built on palm oil, the wholegrain version over the refined one, the snack without 'partially hydrogenated' anything: individually minor, collectively powerful.

The obstacle is that spotting the better option means reading two ingredient lists and two fat breakdowns every time, which almost nobody sustains. A scanner makes the comparison instant, so the heart-smarter choice becomes the easy one rather than the effortful one.

Pair that with actively choosing the foods that help — oats, beans, nuts, olive and rapeseed oil, and products with added plant sterols — and your weekly shop starts working for your cholesterol instead of against it. PickEat is there to make those better defaults quick to find.