Meaning & use
unsaturated fat
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable or uncountablechemistry
A type of fat whose molecules contain at least one double bond, usually liquid at room temperature and found in oils, nuts and fish.
Grammar: Uncountable in general: eat less fat. Countable for kinds: two unsaturated fats.
Patterns
- replace saturated fat with unsaturated fat
- rich in unsaturated fat
Olive oil is rich in unsaturated fat.
Doctors advise replacing butter with unsaturated fat.
Nuts and salmon are good sources of unsaturated fat.
Word forms
| plural | unsaturated fats |
|---|
Common combinations
- rich in unsaturated fat
- Avocados are rich in unsaturated fat.
- healthy unsaturated fats
- Choose healthy unsaturated fats such as olive oil.
- monounsaturated fat
- Monounsaturated fat is found in olive oil.
- polyunsaturated fat
- Polyunsaturated fat is found in fish.
- replace saturated fat with unsaturated fat
- Try to replace saturated fat with unsaturated fat.
Synonyms and how they differ
- healthy fat
- Healthy fat is an everyday phrase that mostly means unsaturated fat, but is less exact.
- plant oil
- Plant oil is a food source, while unsaturated fat is the chemical type.
Opposites
Word family
- saturated adjective
- holding as much as possible
- unsaturated adjective
- not fully saturated
- monounsaturated adjective
- with one double bond
- polyunsaturated adjective
- with several double bonds
Commonly confused: unsaturated fat or trans fat?
unsaturated fat vs trans fat
Trans fat is a type of unsaturated fat processed in a way that makes it unhealthy.
Practice
Which food is a good source of unsaturated fat?
Choose one answer.
Olive oil is mainly unsaturated fat. The others are mostly saturated animal fats.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “unsaturated fat”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.