No doubt most of us have heard the FDA news release that they are going to phase out trans fats. I absolutely applaud this resolution. But now the question is: why? And why were trans fats permitted in the first place? What exactly are trans fats?
To put it bluntly, industrial trans fats have no nutritional value whatsoever. But Companies like using trans fats in their foods because they’re easy to use, inexpensive to produce and last a very long time. Trans fats give foods a desirable taste and texture. Many restaurants and fast-food outlets use trans fats to deep-fry foods because oils with trans fats can be used many times in commercial fryers. In short, they are addictive. And food companies found that by cooking food with trans fats they could keep you coming back for more.
These are the facts about trans fats: Trans fats raise your bad (LDL) cholesterol levels and lower your good (HDL) cholesterol levels. Eating trans fats increases your risk of developing heart disease and stroke. It’s also associated with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The American Heart Association recommends limiting the amount of trans fats you eat to less than 1 percent of your total daily calories. That means if you need 2,000 calories a day, no more than 20 of those calories should come from trans fats. That’s less than 2 grams of trans fats a day. Given the amount of naturally occurring trans fats you probably eat every day, this leaves virtually no room at all for industrially manufactured trans fats.
Trans fats (or trans fatty acids) are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid. Another name for trans fats is “partially hydrogenated oils." Look for them on the ingredient list on food packages.
The reason partially hydrogenated oils were needed is because much industrialized food is homogenized and therefore need a solidifying ingredient. Are trans fats natural? There are small amounts of trans fats occurring naturally in some meat and dairy products, including beef, lamb and butterfat. But they are very small traces and it isn’t evident; though, that these naturally occurring trans fats have the same bad effects on cholesterol levels as trans fats that have been industrially manufactured.
Industrial manufactured trans fats raise your bad (LDL) cholesterol levels and lower your good (HDL) cholesterol levels. Eating trans fats increases your risk of developing heart disease and stroke. It’s also associated with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
When you understand the scale of life threatening health effects brought about by trans fats you must ask yourself how this abomination was ever allowed to be distributed to the general public in the first place. The answer is not some wide spread conspiracy theory. The truth is simply lack of interest.
Lack of information on trans fats coupled with the growing need of industrialized food created a vacuum. Companies understood the value of it and we inherited an incredible heart disease epidemic. My question is what are industry officials replacing trans fats with?
The answer is potentially worse than the stat quo. Saturated fats. The nature of saturated fats needs an article of its own. But saturated fats raise you bad cholesterol levels disproportionately. My fear is that people will feel satisfaction that they finally know why they crave McDonald's and Popeye's fried chicken but now that trans fats are no longer allowed they will think it is safe to eat there. It is not. Any food that raises your cholesterol levels is not nor ever will be beneficial.
*See the below USA TODAY article.
http://usat.ly/1huu7Le
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