Everything You Need to Know About Trans Fat

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There are four kinds of fats: monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, saturated fat, and trans fat. Monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat are the "good" fats. It is generally accepted that consumption of saturated fat should be kept low, especially for adults. Trans fat (which means trans fatty acids) is the worst kind of fat, far worse than saturated fat.

Partial hydrogenation is an industrial process used to make a perfectly good oil, such as soybean oil, into a perfectly bad oil. The process is used to make an oil more solid; provide longer shelf-life in baked products; provide longer fry-life for cooking oils, and provide a certain kind of texture or "mouthfeel." The big problem is that partially hydrogenated oil is laden with lethal trans fat.

It is only the trans fat created by the partial hydrogenation of vegetable oils that we are concerned about and that should be eliminated completely from your diet. We at BanTransFats.com are not concerned with the kind of naturally occurring trans fat found in small amounts in pomegranets, cabbage, peas, or the type found in the meat and milk of cows, sheep and goats.
Partially hydrogenated oils are commonly found in processed foods like commercial baked products such as cookies, cakes and crackers, and even in bread. They are also used as cooking oils (called "liquid shortening") for frying in restaurants.

Health effects:

One of the reasons that partially hydrogenated oils are used is to increase the product's shelf life, but they decrease your shelf life.

Trans fats cause significant and serious lowering of HDL (good) cholesterol and a significant and serious increase in LDL (bad) cholesterol; make the arteries more rigid; cause major clogging of arteries; cause insulin resistance; cause or contribute to type 2 diabetes; and cause or contribute to other serious health problems.

In one cross-over diet trial, scientists randomly assigned 29 healthy men and women to a diet high in trans fat, or a high saturated fat diet in which the trans fat was replaced by saturated fats. The trans fat came mostly from partially hydrogenated soybean oil and the saturated fat came from palm kernel oil. After four weeks on one diet, the subjects were crossed over to the other diet. For each subject, the researchers took four measurements of artery dilation in the arm. They found that the ability of the blood vessels to dilate was 29 percent lower in people who ate the high trans fat diet compared those on the saturated fat diet. Blood levels of HDL cholesterol were 21 percent lower in the high trans fat group compared to the high saturated fat group. [De Roos, Bots and Katan: "Replacement of Dietary Saturated Fatty Acids by Trans Fatty Acids Lowers Serum HDL Cholesterol and Impairs Endothelial Function in Healthy Men and Women Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association, July 2001.]

In another study conducted in Australia, scientists acquired dietary information as well as fat biopsy samples from 79 people. Each had just had a first heart attack. The researchers obtained similar information and biopsy samples from 167 people without heart problems. The researchers inquired specifically about the participants' type and amount of fat intake. The heart patients and healthy individuals were also matched for age, gender, and socioeconomic background. Analysis revealed that trans fats from both animal and vegetable sources were significantly more abundant in the fat tissues of heart attack patients than in the healthy volunteers. The relationship of abundant trans fats with heart risk remained even after the scientists statistically accounted for the effect of saturated fats in the participants’ diets. [Clifton, Keogh and Noakes: "Trans Fatty Acids In Adipose Tissue And The Food Supply Are Associated With Myocardial Infarction."]

Top nutritionists at Harvard have stated as follows:

"By our most conservative estimate, replacement of partially hydrogenated fat in the U.S. diet with natural unhydrogenated vegetable oils would prevent approximately 30,000 premature coronary deaths per year, and epidemiologic evidence suggests this number is closer to 100,000 premature deaths annually."

Here is a very frequently asked question. Why do some manufacturers claim on their packaging that a product is trans fat free when a partially hydrogenated oil is shown on the list of ingredients? Because under FDA regulations, if a product contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving size, they must express it as zero grams. It's a bad rule that should be changed! Some food manufacturers believe that this allows them to say on the packaging that the product is "trans fat-free." We think that they are wrong.

In a recent survey, five popular restaurant or takeout foods were randomly selected and analyzed for their trans fat content. Trans fats were found in all of the products that were tested:

- Five small chicken nuggets from a fast food chicken outlet contained nearly 4 grams of trans fat.

-An apple danish from a donut shop contained about 2.7 grams of trans fat.

-Two vegetable spring rolls from a Chinese takeout contained about 1.7 grams of trans fat.

-Just one fillet of battered fish from a fish and chips restaurant dinner contained about 1.2 grams of trans fat -- and that's not including the trans fat in the French fries.

- Even in pizza you'd most likely ingest about 1 gram of trans fat in two slices -- most of it from vegetable shortening used to process the crust.