Meaning & use
saturated fat
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
A kind of dietary fat found mostly in animal products and some tropical oils, which stays solid at room temperature and can raise cholesterol.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: too much saturated fat; the plural 'saturated fats' appears in technical writing.
Patterns
- high in saturated fat
- cut down on saturated fat
Butter and cheese are high in saturated fat.
Doctors often advise people to eat less saturated fat.
The label shows how many grams of saturated fat each serving contains.
nouncountable or uncountablechemistrytechnical
A fat whose molecules have only single bonds between carbon atoms, so they are fully loaded with hydrogen.
Grammar: In chemistry, you can say 'a saturated fat' or 'saturated fats'.
Patterns
- saturated and unsaturated fats
In chemistry class we learned that a saturated fat has no double bonds.
Unlike unsaturated fats, saturated fats pack tightly together.
Word forms
| plural | saturated fats |
|---|
Common combinations
- high in saturated fat
- Coconut oil is high in saturated fat.
- reduce saturated fat
- She reduced saturated fat by swapping butter for olive oil.
- saturated fat intake
- His saturated fat intake dropped after the checkup.
- trans fat and saturated fat
- Labels list both trans fat and saturated fat.
Synonyms and how they differ
Opposites
Word family
- saturate verb
- to fill completely
- saturated adjective
- filled to the maximum
- saturation noun
- the state of being full
Commonly confused: saturated fat or trans fat?
saturated fat vs trans fat
Trans fat is a different, artificially produced fat; both are unhealthy in excess but they are not the same thing.
Practice
Which food is generally highest in saturated fat?
Choose one answer.
Butter comes from milk fat and is rich in saturated fat. Fruit, rice and leafy greens contain very little.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “saturated fat”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.