The Ultimate Tilapia Sandwich

A foodguru802 original recipe!  This sandwich is extremely healthy in almost every way, and it will not only taste remarkably delicious, but will help support lean muscle mass, as well as fit into your daily caloric intake quite effortlessly.  You can also make it as spicy as you'd like (as I show you)  Check out the video!

Remember, this sandwich has over 40 grams of protein, and less than 320 calories!  It also has great complex carbohydrates that will keep you energized all day.

I mean seriously, what else could you ask for?

Cook Those Eggs!

I for one am a HUGE fan of eggs, and all the amazing health benefits associated with them.  They're loaded with vitamins, healthy fats, and most importantly, PROTEIN!  Yes, being a weightlifter I need all the protein I can get for the fewest calories I can find.  My two favorite foods that fit this bill perfectly are fish, and EGGS.  You can get 8 grams of readily absorbed protein from each egg, and the egg itself is only around 74 calories.  The egg white contains a lot of protein by itself, around 6 grams, and there are only about 20 calories worth in every egg.  But hey, if you're only going to eat one to three eggs a day, keep the yoke in.  I won't delve into much detail, but the cholesterol issues so commonly referred to in the same sentence as eggs are drastically overstated.  The yoke has a plethora of health benefits, and the dietary cholesterol it contains should NOT be a deterrent for this tasty yellow center.

But I'm not here just to go off on how eggs are so amazing (which they are), I'm writing this article to drop an interesting little knowledge bomb on all of you.  Eggs have the potential to be one of the most biologically available protein sources in the entire food universe.  What do I mean by this?  Well you see, though you can easily find out how much protein there is in any quantity of any type of food, the body can only absorb a certain percentage of that protein because of the chemical composition of the food itself.  The absorbed percentage is known as the "bioavailibilty" of the protein.  Beef protein is about 80% bioavailable to the body.  Fish protein?  ~83%.  The protein in eggs, remarkably, is upward of 95% bioavailable to the body!  That's impressive!

But wait, hold the phone.  

Egg protein is only 95% bioavailable to the body when the egg is COOKED.  That's right, fried, poached, boiled, you name it, that's what gets all that good protein to the forefront of your nutrient absorption.

What's the bioavailibility of raw egg protein?  about 50%.

That, my friends, is a HUGE difference!

Why is this the case?  Well, it's a funny chemical process that occurs when the egg is cooked which allows the protein to become more readily absorbed by your body.  And while I could delve into a complicated description of exactly how this chemical process works, I happened across a marvelous little webpage that explains the whole situation much better than I could.  Here's what it says:

"Heat ’em

When you apply heat, you agitate those placidly drifting egg-white proteins, bouncing them around. They slam into the surrounding water molecules; they bash into each other. All this bashing about breaks the weak bonds that kept the protein curled up. The egg proteins uncurl and bump into other proteins that have also uncurled. New chemical bonds form—but rather than binding the protein to itself, these bonds connect one protein to another. 

After enough of this bashing and bonding, the solitary egg proteins are solitary no longer. They’ve formed a network of interconnected proteins. The water in which the proteins once floated is captured and held in the protein web. If you leave the eggs at a high temperature too long, too many bonds form and the egg white becomes rubbery."

Check my references to see the rest of this page.  It's a great read.

Want another reason to cook your eggs?  One word:  Salmonella.  It's not something you want, believe me. Without going into too much detail, it's a bacteria that will make you VERY sick VERY quickly, and causes about 140 US deaths per year.  Sure, the risk of death sounds relatively low, but it also infects over a million people every year, and you do NOT want to be infected.  What's one of the biggest causes of salmonella infection?

Chicken eggs.  Yeah, bummer, I know.

Salmonella usually rests on the shell of the egg, but can also penetrate to the yoke.  It's said that 1 in every 20,000 eggs is infected with salmonella.  Sure, the risk is low, but I eat between 1-3 eggs a day, and I know people who eat upward of nine eggs daily.  If someone eats between 3 and 9 eggs daily, they'll eat between 1095 and 3285 eggs per year.  So at the bare minimum, in twenty years it's VERY likely you'll run across an egg that's salmonella infected.  Something to think about.

So what's the good news?  Cooking eggs thoroughly can eliminate salmonella bacteria within the yoke.  Wash your hands thoroughly after handling eggs though, as it can still reside on the shell.  Easy enough, right?

So what's the bottom line?  Sorry you wanna-be Rocky Balboas, downing your eggs raw is not only exposing you to an unnecessary salmonella risk, but you're wasting a heaping ton of some otherwise EXTREMELY BIOAVAILABLE protein.  Why deprive yourself of what your body needs?

Build some muscle, lose some fat, cook those eggs.  Good Luck!


References:


http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/eggs/eggscience.html
http://www.incredibleegg.org/egg-facts/egg-safety/eggs-and-food-safety
http://www.about-salmonella.com/

Brain Training For Muscle Gains

So, all you gym rats, all you muscle heads, you heavy hitters, big time lifters, and meat-heads, what do you think happens when you get stronger? What has actually changed in your body that has allowed you to lift more weight than previously?  Well, the obvious answer is that you've gained muscle mass, greater muscle density, or in other words, you've increased the amount of usable muscle fiber in your body.  But what if I told you that you, without ever lifting a single weight, have more muscle fiber in your body than you really know what to do with?

Well, maybe that's not exactly true, there is a limit to the "stock" amount of muscle fiber you have.  But without any sort of training, much of your muscle fiber will be wasted and doomed to inactivity.  You'll be unable to lift to your potential.  In fact, you may remember in my recent article regarding gorillas (yes, gorillas, quite fascinating actually, read it here: ), I mentioned that the human body with no training whatsoever is only able to use about 20% of the muscle fiber it has.  That's not much now, is it?  Four out of every five muscle fibers are unusable without any sort of training.    That means you have a lot more potential than you could believe.  The good news is, when you lift weights, you not only break down muscle fiber (and inevitably build it back up again), you create stronger connections between your brain and muscles, and can more actively engage greater numbers of muscle fibers to work for you and lift that incredibly heavy barbell.  

Let's explore this brain-muscle connection a little further, and maybe optimize the gains you can obtain through "brain training."  The actual name of this brain system is called the Central Nervous System, or CNS.  Ever heard of it?  In actuality your CNS determines how your body reacts to stimulus, how quickly it reacts, with how much power and intensity, and with the greatest efficiency possible.  As you increase training intensity, weight, reps, etc., you build a stronger connection between your CNS and you muscle fibers. 

 In general, heavier loads are more taxing on your CNS, and require a more powerful contribution from your brain. In fact, the greatest way to stimulate your brain to build stronger muscle connections is through high weight, low rep applications.  Big surprise, I'm going to bring up weightlifting again!  Olympic weightlifters are masters at using every muscle fiber they've got with the greatest possible efficiency.  They can optimize the contribution of their CNS, and while the truth of this statement hasn't been confirmed, very often you'll hear members of the infamous Chinese weightlifting team claiming they can use more than 90% of their muscle fiber.  That's 70% more than the average human being!  Here's a good explanation of CNS training that might optimize brain-muscle connection development:

"Bompa's philosophy (Bompa 2005) with regards to weight training to improve explosive power is that repetitions are the key training variable. He recommends a low number of repetitions (1 to 3), with loadings in excess of 90% of 1RM (1 rep max), in order to develop strength that will boost speed and power and optimise the contribution of the CNS, with a recovery of 6 minutes between sets. These loadings create a higher level of excitation and receptor/effector communication, more motor unit recruitment and greater neural stimulation. These loadings and recoveries are also recommended on the basis of their contribution to maximum power and strength expression, and also because they do not produce a large increase in muscle mass, which could be detrimental to an athlete's power to weight ratio."

But why stop at weightlifters?  It's obvious that any high level athlete has a highly developed CNS in regards to their sport.  They know exactly how to use the muscles they need in order to get the job done to the highest possible efficiency.  They are strong, fast, lean, and powerful.  Most likely they've also been training for quite a long time in order to develop such remarkable connections.  There's obviously something to be said about practice.  The more often an activity is performed, especially with intensity and good form, the greater development will occur in your brain.  

Hopefully it's quite obvious by now that your brain plays a big roll in your training.  And just like your muscles, you can overtrain your CNS to the point where it becomes impossible to work out.  It's not quite the same feeling as an extremely sore muscle, or stiff joints.  From personal experience, I believe it's a much worse feeling, and far more frustrating.  An overtrained CNS will leave you completely drained, blurry eyed, and unable to lift even a fraction of what you normally could.  It'll be like energy just won't come your way no matter what you do.  If you don't want to overtrain your CNS, avoid:

-Extremely heavy loads each and every day

-Working to failure on a constant basis

-Extremely high intensity workouts too often throughout the week

Nobody's saying you can't push yourself.  But do it smartly, and if you're not used to heavy loads, work up to them.  Not everybody is able to squat 90% of their max day in and day out, you need to work up to that level.  Just like your muscles, your CNS will gain endurance and strength, and you'll be able to lift heavier and work harder more and more often.

If you do overtax yourself, even accidentally, don't despair, it usually happens to most everyone at one point or another.  You have to know your limits, and sometimes the only way to find them is to surpass them.  Just take a day off from the gym (A REAL DAY OFF, NOT A LIGHT WORKOUT DAY), get plenty of sleep, eat well (eat to refuel, complex carbs and lean proteins), and really let all those nutrients soak up into your body as you give it a much needed break.

Realize that when you get stronger, you're not just packing on meat.  You're getting smarter with the iron, and more able to use every muscle fiber you've got.  Crazy stuff right?

Use that brain, push yourself, and as always, GOOD LUCK!

References:

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/cns.htm

Alcohol's Big Fat Secret

Here in college, I am near large amounts of alcohol in every direction.  Each night I hear those stumble in who've had a little too much, or get the pleasure of seeing someone's roommate completely plastered, laying in bed, face covered in marker and flour.  Usually I just sigh and go on about my way, as there isn't much I could say that would stop such occurrences,  It's just a way of life around here, books and booze.

We all have heard alcohol is dangerous.  We've all heard the forboding statistics echoing off the walls of every educated establishment to every person of relative youth.  "Don't drink, you'll die, one way or another."  Of course alcohol is dangerous!  It's a poison!  Your body doesn't really enjoy poison too much, and works very hard to filter it out of your system.  That's what your liver is for, and without it you wouldn't be walking around today, that's for sure.  People who drink work their livers extremely hard, hence they are more at risk for liver disease, sclerosis, and all that other fun stuff.  Not to mention all the impairment risks, which I bet you've heard before a million times.  I don't plan on rattling them all off again to you, that's not what I intended to do with this article.

In reality, there's another little caveat related to alcohol consumption that is rarely discussed.  In fact, if this fact was more widely known, I bet drinking in excess would most likely decrease as a whole.  The truth is, ALCOHOL IS FATTENING!!!!  In fact, the calories in alcohol add up quite quickly, especially on party night.  Let's examine the nutrition of several alcoholic drinks, and discuss why each one could easily take your carefully planned diet and flip it on its head.  

Beer:  Of any alcohol, I think this drink is most commonly associated with those who are overweight.  I mean come on, have you seen some of the "beer bellies" out there these days?  Ridiculous!  The average beer has between 100-200 calories per drink (12 fl.oz), and in any sort of drinking game that can add up fast.  After 3 or 4 beers, you're could be almost a third of your way to a new pound of fat on your midsection (one pound of fat is approximately 3500 calories.)  And many people with heavy alcohol tolerances don't stop there.  I regularly hear of 10 beer sessions.  What's the record I've heard of?  it was somewhere between 22 and 28 in one night, I don't remember exactly.  But even on the low end of the spectrum, if they were average 150 calorie beers, that's 3300 calories.  Amazing.  

Beer can also have large amounts of simple carbohydrates (killers in the fat gain department), with some containing up to 15 grams of carbs per beer.  It varies greatly though, and some beer can have as little as 3 grams per 12 fl.oz.  Read that nutritional label!

Wine:  This drink is one that you can usually drink a good bit of, similar to beer.  Its alcohol content usually isn't as "aggressive," and can keep you drinking for quite a few hours.  The calories start to add up though, more than you might initially believe considering how light wine seems to be.  Red Wine has around 130 calories per 5 fl.oz (the average serving size).  White wine is about the same, with about 120 calories per 5 fl.oz.

These figures may not seem like much, but you have to remember that alcohol goes on top of everything else.  You have wine with dinner, and usually a fancy dinner at that.  Fancy dinners contain foods covered in fancy sauces, which are usually very delicious due to the high saturated fat content (our bodies love the taste of fat.  Just think about peanut butter, isn't it great how smooth and delicious it tastes?  That's the fat!)  Another 300 calories on top of an already unhealthy meal will only throw you from the frying pan into the fire.  Watch those calories!

Shots:  These little suckers are dangerous.  Not only do they contain about the same amount of alcohol as an entire beer, they also have quite a few calories per serving.  70 proof liquor has about 85 calories per shot.  80 proof is around 100 calories per shot.  90 proof is 115 calories per shot.  And 100 proof has a whopping 130 calories per shot!  And honestly, who drinks just one shot?  

After 4 or 5 shots (By the way that's a LOT of alcohol), you've consumed around 400-500 calories.  Add that on top of a day of eating, and you can kiss those weight loss goals goodbye.  Many people don't consider shots to have that many calories because, well look at them, they're tiny!  How could there possibly be any sort of real caloric value to that little bit of happy juice?  Believe me, those calories are there, and in a night of partying, they will add up quickly.

Mixed Drinks:  These drinks are a little harder to judge in terms of nutritional information because well, they're MIXED!  But I can give you a few figures just to get your mind working a little:

Margarita: 150-210 calories

Pinacolada: 250-300 calories

Long Island Iced Tea: 200-230 calories

Country Cocktail (with JD): 150-200 calories

Chances are, the "foofier" and more grandeur that drink of yours is, the more calories it will contain (not to mention all that salt on the rim of a margarita glass).  These drinks aren't generally meant to get you drunk in one straight shot either (although there are exceptions), so more than likely you'll be able to go back and buy another.  That's what bars and restaurants are best at, keeping you drinking, so they get to take as much of your money as possible.  After 4 mixed drinks, you could have taken in as many as 1000 calories.  And that's on top of that veal or goose that's taking such a long time in the kitchen!  Talk about a fat happy meal.

And here's one more little fact that you should take into account when drinking alcohol.  IT STIMULATES YOUR APPETITE!  That's right, when you drink alcohol, you're very likely to eat much more than you would have initially.  That's another reason most restaurants love to sell you alcohol with dinner.  Have you ever heard of the munchies?  You associate with pot right?  Well it can just as easily be applied to alcohol.  Believe me I see plenty of the "drunk munchies" around here every single weekend.

Bottom Line: So there you have it.  Not only can alcohol be dangerous, but even in small amounts it is VERY calorie significant.  I'm not saying you can't enjoy alcohol (responsibly), but just make sure you know what you're consuming.  It's not water, and can really throw a diet into the garbage if not taken into account.

Know your limits, count your calories, and as always, good luck! (and stay safe, my fellow college students.) 

Venison: Lean, Healthy and Delicious!

It's that time of year, time to eat something a little more organic!

I bet there's a lot of you that have never tried venison.  Some of you might not even really know what it is, BUT WAIT, I'll tell you before you go running off to google.  Venison is deer meat, most commonly from white-tailed deer.  It's a great alternative to boring old beef and chicken, and boy is it lean!  Hunters bag over 6 million white tailed deer per year, so if you're willing to look a little bit, there's plenty of venison out there for you to try it!

Why is Venison so lean?  Well, deer are extremely active animals, with very herbaceous diets. They're constantly darting from field to field, and never accumulate a caloric excess to the point that would allow them to gain large amounts of fat.  All that running packs some pretty dense muscle on their bones as well, so when these two facts are combined it's easy to see that Venison could quite possibly be one of the leanest sources of land-based protein.  

For example, let's compare.  

1 oz of Venison has 46 calories, .3g saturated fat, and 9.8g of protein.

1 oz of lean, broiled steak has 55 calories, .7g saturated fat, and 8.5g protein.

1 oz of a lower quality cut of steak has 90 calories, 2.5g saturated fat, and 8g protein

Excuse my inconsistent significant figures

Even the leanest beef can't compare to an ounce of natural, organic Venison.  To bring this point home, 4oz of Venison on average has around 180 calories and 35g of protein.  4oz of an AVERAGE CUT OF 70/30 BEEF has 350 calories and 20 grams of protein.  The clear winner? Venison.

And as I mentioned above, Venison is Organic!  Most farm raised animals have been fed some sort of steroid of hormone in order to increase their muscle mass (or possibly just their size in general).  Bigger muscles= more meat= more money for the farmers.  I'm not going to harp on farmers for their techniques, it's easy to see why this is done, and for the most part it's not a huge deal. But these injected meats definitely are NOT as healthy to consume as their organic counterparts, and it's hard to get more organic than Venison.  

Venison is also packed full of vitamins and other nutrients, like Vitamin B (and all it's counterparts), D, E, magnesium, manganese, zinc, omega 3 fatty acids, Copper, and Potassium.  It even has a good serving a folate in it.  This meat is packed with health benefits!

Unfortunately, Venison isn't quite as "consistent" a meat as say, beef or chicken.  What I mean by this is that the toughness and taste of the meat varies greatly depending on how the animal was taken.  Here's a quote I found from another website stating a few factors that can cause Venison to lose some of it's taste or tenderness:

"Young animals are generally tender by nature, and require little, or no aging to ensure tenderness. However, if the deer runs a great distance between wounding and death, there's a good chance it will expend all its glycogen reserves. When this happens, the pH level of the meat increases, speeding bacterial growth."

So there's a few other factors in determining the taste of the meat itself.  Also, there's a few small nuances with cooking/dressing/storing the meat that can be important, due to the highly natural diet of deer.  Follow these tips to ensure that your Venison is both safe and delicious:

Cooking Tips

• Parasites and tapeworms are common in venison; hence it should be frozen for minimum of two hours. This will kill any parasites or tapeworms.
• For tougher cuts like rump, round and shoulder, moist heat methods such as braising (simmering in a small amount of liquid, in a covered pot) is recommended.
• Prepare a hearty stew by combining venison steak pieces, root vegetables, spices and broth.
• Skewer marinated cubes of venison steak with vegetables and grill in the oven or on the barbeque.
• To mask the gamey flavor of venison, spices or marinades can be used.
• A vinegar-soaked cloth will remove hair from the meat, which can otherwise produce undesirable flavors.
• You can add other fats to avoid the meat from becoming too dry. Rub a roast with oil, butter, margarine, bacon fat or sweet or sour cream to add moisture, richness, and flavor.
• In case you have to marinate venison, do so in the refrigerator only. This is because its extreme sensitivity to heat might spoil it, at room temperature.
• Always defrost frozen venison in the refrigerator and not at room temperature

All in all, Venison is a perfect alternative to traditional beef, chicken, turkey, pork, and similar meats.  Think of it, a healthy red meat!  What are the chances.  I suggest that you try this meat out ASAP, either for lunch or dinner.  The taste may take a little getting used to, it can be very strong and some people don't completely enjoy it at first. But others absolutely LOVE IT.  I plan to pick some up soon myself, probably in the form of Venison jerky.  

Be adventurous, try something natural, lean, healthy, and delicious!

Cook carefully, enjoy wholeheartedly, and good luck!

The Basics of Clean

So, I'm going to introduce you to a new diet, and in all honesty, it'll be the only diet you'll ever need.

It's not radical, crazy, and frankly, it's not new at all.  It's been around forever.  It's called:

CLEAN EATING.

This term, unfortunately, means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  And again I'll be honest, there's no way to determine the exact definition of what "eating clean" really mean.  But it's extremely easy to get the gist of it.  In fact by the end of this post, all of you should have a good idea of what clean eating really means in its broadest sense.

Here's my personal definition of clean eating:
  Eating food that has high nutritional value in correct, balanced quantities.

Pretty simple eh?  It really is, however a lot of people like to over-complicate it.  To make things a little easier, lets look at some different food groups (or components), and how to eat cleanly in each one.

Carbohydrates:  Eating cleanly in terms of Carbohydrates seems to be the place where most people really struggle.  Carbs are everywhere.  Bread, cheetos, veggies, fruits, desserts, cereal, etc.  They hide to some degree in all the food you consume.  I'll let you in on a secret though.  Carbs are NOT your enemy.  For some reason, many people think they are.  That's a flawed way of thinking, because your body needs Carbs for it's main energy source.  It's the fuel to that human engine of yours.

To keep things simple, let's establish first that there are two main types of carbs: Simple carbohydrates, and complex carbohydrates.  Simple carbs are called monosaccharides, or simple sugars.  When they are consumed, they are digested quickly and easily, and are readily used for energy.  Or at least, they should be. However, how many times after dessert have you actually expended all the energy which that sugar loaded brownie contained?  Not often, I'm guessing.  And that's where carbs come back to haunt you.  Unused Carbohydrates equates to wasted energy.  And guess where wasted energy goes.  That's right, your midsection.  


Complex Carbohydrates are Carbs that your body has a more difficult time digesting, and therefore the body will take a longer time and expend more energy digesting them.  These are "long acting" carbs that give you full, sustained energy for a long period of time, without the characteristic "sugar high."  Such carbs include vegetables, whole wheat breads, and oatmeal.  These carbs, overall, tend to be a little more "flexible".  When in doubt about carbs, it's usually safe to assume that complex carbs will be healthier in the long run.  Because they are digested over a long period of time, they do not as readily turn to fat.  Again this IS NOT ALWAYS TRUE, I'm purely making a broad generality.  Learn the rules first, then the exceptions.

So are simple carbs bad?  Absolutely not.  Fruits are comprised of mainly simple carbs.  They give you a good hit of energy without spiking blood insulin (I'll discuss this, the GI scale, and all related topics in a later post) to a high degree.  On a hike?  Bring an apple.  Tired at work?  Eat a banana.  Craving something sweet?  Have an orange.  Can you go overboard eating fruits?  Sure, but that's true for most anything.  It's pretty safe to say that if you're dying for a snack, a fruit is a very healthy, clean option.

Proteins:  Here we go guys.  MEAT MEAT MEAT.  Being an avid weightlifter, I for one am an enormous protein consumer.  We all know meat has protein, and protein builds muscle.  And at this point, I won't get any more into than that (who wants to hear a boring speech about amino acids and protein synthesis anyway right?).  I like to characterize the quality of a protein source with a few questions:  How dense is it (grams of protein per serving), how lean is it (how many calories per serving along with saturated fats, trans fats, and other undesirables come with that nice protein punch), and how readily is the protein absorbed by your body (whey protein has greater absorption than soy, etc.).

So without getting into too much detail, let me list a few of the best, readily available protein sources:  boneless and skinless chicken breast, turkey breast, lean cuts of beef, salmon, tuna, swordfish, whey, venison, and egg whites.

Some of the less optimal sources: cheap cuts of beef, pork, ham, soy, and basically any meat smothered in sauce and marinade.

I'm going to go back to fish for a second though.  I personally believe fish to be the best form of readily available protein.  Why?  Because there is a huge amount of protein per serving, with very few calories.  One can of chunk light tuna has 26g of protein at a hundred calories.  That's more protein per serving than my special "Wheybolic extreme 60" protein powder I drink after every workout and spend a fortune on every month.  Good old tuna has got most other meats beat.  Same with salmon.  Fish is loaded with lean protein, Omega 3 fatty acids, low cholesterol, and about a million nutrients that will do your body well.  Looking for some good meat?  Grab some fish for dinner and grill it up nice (obviously don't fry it, as much as I know you'd like to.)

Fats:  AH!  FAT!  GET IT AWAY!  That's the right response, many food companies would claim.  And they'd be 100% wrong.  I'm going to tell you another secret (I've got a whole bunch) FATS DON'T MAKE YOU FAT.  In fact, those "low fat" oreos you're eating aren't any better for you than the regular ones, and might actually be worse.  Fats do our body well, especially the unsaturated fats present in nuts, peanut butter (all natural, of course), olive oil, most fish (omega 3 fatty acids), almond milk, avocados, and the list goes on.  Unsaturated fat should not ever be avoided outright, but like anything, eaten in moderation.

Unsaturated fats actually do a lot of good for you.  They reduce bad cholesterol, help the body absorb fat soluble vitamins,and increase the good.  They can slow down nutrient absorption into the muscles,  which is great for athletes who want to prevent going catabolic over night.  There are many other benefits to fat as well, but hopefully I've convinced you enough at this point.

Saturated fat is what you want to cut down on.  As with anything, a little in moderation may have benefits, but in general the average person consumes wayyy too much saturated fat.  This is the fat that usually increases bad cholesterol and narrows your arteries.  In other words, it makes your heart work way too hard, and that's never good.  The recommended saturated fat intake for a 2000 calorie diet (which is by no means the diet for everyone) is about 20 grams, which also happens to be about a third of your daily total fat intake.

Trans fats are a HUGE no-no.  I'll devote an entire separate post to those though.  If you see trans fat on the nutritional label, and it has any number other than "0" next to it, I would suggest putting it back.

So there you go, the basics.  Understanding those three components of food is a huge step in becoming a "food guru."  Now, the next step is finding what foods are "clean" and would easily fit into your daily diet, and how to balance your diet so that you get a good ration of these three components: carbs, protein, and fat.  Onward and upward!