I’m ready to talk about something nowadays that most of you have doubtless never heard…that there is a distinction between good trans fats and bad trans fats. There is some proof that the good trans fats can help you with fat loss, muscle structure, and even disease prevention, while the bad trans fats have been exposed to give heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and the common blubbering of your body.

I’m assured most of you have heard all of the hubbub in the news over the last few years about just how bad man-made trans fats are for your wellbeing. My belief that these substances are some of the most evil food additives of all and are found in the extensive majority of all processed foods and fast foods on the market. In my view, man-made trans fats are right up there with smoking in terms of their level of peril to your wellbeing. After all, they are one of THE MAJOR causes for the explosion of heart disease since approximately the 1950’s.

With all of the chitchat about trans fats in the news these days, I sought to simplify some material, particularly about bad trans fats vs. good trans fats. If you’ve never heard of good trans fats before, let me vindicate in a bit.

The Bad Trans Fats

First, the bad trans fats I’m referring to are the man-made kind. These are represented by any artificially hydrogenated oils. The highest culprits are butter, shortening, and somewhat hydrogenated oils that are in most routeed foods, garbage foods, and pressing fried foods.

These hydrogenated oils are extremely processed with harsh compound solvents like hexane (a component of gasoline), high energy, presassured, have a metal mechanism added, and are then deodorized and lightened. A small % of the solvent is allowed to remain in the completed oil. This has now become more of an industrial oil instead of a food oil, but someway the FDA still allows the food producers to put this crap in our food at mammoth quantities, even with the well documented health dangers.

These hydrogenated oils produce inflammation inside of your body, which signals the deposition of cholesterol as a medicinal agent on vein walls. Thus, hydrogenated oil = inflammation = blocked arteries. You can see why heart disease has exploded while this crap has been inserted into our food supply over the last 5 to 6 decades.

As time goes on, and knowledge continues to reveal how deadly these oils actually are, I feel that eventually they will be banned and banned from use. The category laws were just the first stage. In actuality, certain countries around the world have already banned the use of hydrogenated oils in food producers or slightest set dates to phase them out for good.

However, keep in mind the views of companies are starting to phase out the use of hydrogenated oils in processed foods, they are replacing them, in most instances, with decidedly refined polyundrenched oils. These are still roughly processeded oils with high heat, solvents, deodorizers, and bleaching agents. Even refined oils are known to give inflammation in your body…a far cry from natural sources of healthy fats.

Once again, for the best outcome, your best bet is shuning extremely processed foods altogether and choose whole, natural, cleanly routeed foods. Your body will thank you!

The Good Trans Fats

Ok, after having degrating the man-made trans fats, let me visibly state that there is such a thing as healthy natural trans fats. Natural trans fats are produced in the stomachs of ruminant animals like cattle, sheep, goats, etc. and make their way into the fat of the animals.

Then, the milk fat and the fat inside the meat of these animals can offer natural healthy trans fats. Natural trans fats in your diet have been thought to have some potential gain to aid in both muscle structurer and fat loss efforts. However, keep in mind that the magnitude of healthy trans fats in the meat and dairy of ruminant animals is greatly reduced by mass-production methods of rural and their grain and soy intense diets. Meat and dairy from pasture-fed, free-access animals always have higher quantities of these beneficial fats.

One such artless trans fat that you may have heard of is called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and has been advertiseed by many stress injury companies. Keep in attention that these man-made CLA pills you see in the food may not be the best way to get CLA in your diet. They are artificially made from place oils, instead of the artless route that happens in ruminant animals. Once again, man-made just doesn’t relate to the helps of artless sources.

Here’s a great site I found that I use to order all of my healthy grass-fed beef and other free range meats. The service is impeccable and they deliver right to your doorstep in a sealed cooler. It’s worth it to know that you and your family are actually consuming meat that’s good for you instead of the usual grocery store garbage.

Now that all of your labels should be listing grams of trans fat, keep in mind that if a magnitude of trans fat is listed on a meat or dairy carton, it is possible the natural good trans fats that we’ve discussed here. Otherwise, if the magnitude of trans fat is listed on any processed foods, it is most likely the dangerous unhealthy crap from artificially hydrogenated oils, so stay away!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this interesting look at good trans vs. bad trans and use the information to arm yourself with more healthy food choices for a better body.

Some research shows that good (or healthy) trans fats can actually help you prevent cancer, lose fat, and build muscle, while bad (or unhealthy) trans fats can cause cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain.

In the last few years, there has been a lot of information about how terrible man-made trans fats are for you, and how these food additives are found in most of the fast foods and processed foods currently on the market.

There is even evidence that man-made trans fats are as dangerous to your health as smoking, and are among of the main causes of heart disease.

To try to reduce these growing health issues, in 2003 the FDA mandated that food manufacturers begin to show information about grams of trans fat on all nutrition labels.

The FDA put this rule into effect to provide consumers with the information we need to make healthier food choices by lowering our consumption of trans fat as part of a heart-healthy diet. But, even as you’re trying to avoid these trans-fats, you need to understand the differences between good and bad trans fats in order to make informed decisions about the foods you eat.

What Are Bad Trans Fats?

Bad trans fats are the man-made, artificially hydrogenated oils that include margarine, shortening, and partially hydrogenated oils that you’ll find in most processed foods, deep fried foods, and junk foods.

The way these hydrogenated oils are made is through highly processing techniques using harsh chemical solvents such as hexane (a component of gasoline), high heat, and pressure.

They add a metal catalyst, and are then deodorized and bleached. Incredibly, The FDA allows a small percentage of the solvent to stay in the finished oil, which can actually be industrial oil and not food oil.

These hydrogenated oils can wreak havoc on your body, causing internal inflammations that result in clogged arteries.

It’s easy to see why heart disease has increased since these bad trans fats were introduced into our food supply more than fifty years ago.

The hope is that that these deadly hydrogenated oils will eventually be banned from use altogether and removed from our food supply.

Some countries have already banned their use or set dates to phase them out. Unfortunately, as companies start to phase out the use of hydrogenated oils in processed foods, they’re often replacing them with highly refined polyunsaturated oils.

These oils are also heavily processed by using high heat, solvents, deodorizers, and bleaching agents, and are known to produce inflammation in your body.

What Are Good Trans Fats?

The good news is that there are natural, healthy trans fats. Cattle, sheep, and goats create these natural trans fats and store them in their milk and meat fat.

It’s believed that natural trans fats in your diet have can help to build muscle and lose weight. But the benefits might be mitigated because most farming methods rely on mass production and the animals eat grain and soy diets.

The meat and dairy you get from grass-fed, free-range animals will have much higher quantities of the beneficial fats.

In general, you’ll find that trans fats listed on a meat or dairy product are good trans fats, and trans fats listed on processed foods are bad trans fats. But you should always check to be sure.WordPress

What are trans fats? Fatty acids in foods are made up of polyunsaturated (like safflower oil, sunflower oil and corn oil), monounsaturated (like olive oil, peanuts, and avocados), saturated (like coconut oil, palm oil, butter and cheese) and trans fats (like margarine and shortening).

Saturated and trans fats are linked to coronary heart disease. The majority of trans fats are produced by the food industry when it uses a process called hydrogenation to turn liquid vegetable oils into semi-solid products. This process hardens and stabilizes the oils, enhances the flavor and extends the shelf life of food products. These trans fats also break down less easily which makes them more suitable for frying.

The majority of trans fats are found in foods made with shortening, margarine or partially-hydrogenated oils and in baked goods like crackers, cookies and donuts and in fried foods like french fries and fried chicken. The trans fat content of some of these foods can be as high as 45% of the total fat in the food product. Trans fats also occur naturally at fairly low levels in ruminant-based foods like dairy products and beef and lamb.

Are trans fats worse than saturated fats? There is a lot of evidence linking both trans fats and saturated fats to coronary heart disease. Trans fats appear much more dangerous because metabolic studies have shown that they increase the blood levels of our bad cholesterol (LDL) and decrease the levels of our good cholesterol (HDL).

Saturated fats appear less damaging because they elevate the total cholesterol levels – both bad (LDL) and good (HDL). The Harvard School of Public Health found that removing trans fats from the industrial food supply could prevent tens of thousands of heart attacks and cardiac deaths each year in the US. The findings are published in the April 13, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Government organizations around the world have started to act to resolve the problem.

In 2002, the US National Academies of Science recommended that trans fat consumption be kept as low as possible. In 2003 the World Health Organization recommended that trans fat intake be limited to less than 1% of overall energy intake. Also in 2003, Denmark set an upper limit on industrially produced trans fats in foods, limiting them to just 2% of the total fats in foods.

They excluded meat and dairy products. In 2005 Canada required mandatory labeling of trans fats in packaged foods. The US followed in 2006 with a mandatory labeling for any foods containing 0.5 grams or more of trans fats per serving.

Is mandatory labeling sufficient? Shouldn’t we let informed consumers self-regulate the amount of trans fats they consume? Once the consumer understands how harmful trans fats are and that as little as 5 grams per day can lead to heart disease, then mandatory labeling will force the food industry to reduce the amounts contained in food products much faster than a bunch of government regulations, However what about restaurants and the fast food industry?

Here is where the Canadian government task force recommendations are probably a good thing. Consumers do not know how much trans fats there are in french fries, deep fried chicken and baked goods. Therefore we should adopt the recommendation from the June 27th, 2006 final report of the Trans Fat Task Force that states – “For all vegetable oils and soft, spreadable (tub-type) margarines sold to consumers or for use as an ingredient in the preparation of foods on site by retailers or food service establishments, the total trans fat content be limited by regulation to 2% of total fat content.”

This will allow us to eat restaurant and fast food industry foods with the knowledge that the trans fat content is limited to 2% or less.

Generally speaking, there are four types of fats: monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated and trans fats.  Unsaturated fats are considered good fats.  These substances help raise HDL cholesterol and lower the amount of lipoproteins in our blood.  Saturated fats are worse and should be kept to a minimum.  However, trans fat is an unsaturated fatty acid that is thought to be responsible for the increase in heart disease worldwide.

Trans fats came about as a result of partial hydrogenation, a process to make fats more solid, extending their shelf life and making them better to use for baking.  Crisco, first sold in 1911, was the first commercial product to use this method.  Today almost everything contains partially hydrogenated oils, even bread, and a worldwide effort to keep trans fats out of people’s diets has exploded onto the scene.  New labeling and standards have been put into place to allow people to monitor their intake.

If trying to lose weight, one of the best things you can do is read your food labels and make sure you buy products that do not contain any partially hydrogenated oils.  In the United States, any food with less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving can say it has Zero Trans Fat.  So many things you think are trans fat free really just don’t have enough to require labeling. No matter how much you exercise, no quick weight loss will occur until you learn to recognize the dangerous foods you eat and cut them out of your diet altogether.  Experts recommend not consuming anything with hydrogenated oils, no matter if the word partially is included or not.

People who tend to eat on the run may find it very difficult to cut out hydrogenated oils as they are in almost every processed food available today.  It’s best to stick with fresh fruit and vegetables, being sure to avoid fast food altogether.  Many people carry small containers of nuts in their cars to help them avoid stopping in convenience stores when hungry.  If hunger is a sticking point, try adding a natural appetite suppressant like hoodia to your program.  This will help curb inconvenient cravings that may occur due to habit or stress.

It’s not grocery terrorism or product tampering. It’s trans fat, and the FDA estimates that 2,500 to 5,600 deaths per year could be prevented if consumers were more informed about it.

But trans fat is also a critical tool for commercial food producers, from grocery chains to restaurants. It’s cheap and easy to make, easy to use, easy to store, and it extends foods’ shelf life significantly, so food manufacturers lobbied long and hard to prevent any regulation of it, including putting it on Nutrition Facts labels.

The trouble is, of all the fats, consumers most need to know the facts about trans fats, because quite simply, they are the most damaging and dangerous to health. The Institute of Medicine in 2001 issued an unequivocal statement that trans fats “should not be eaten at all.”

Bad News, Good News

Advice like that from the government’s key health advisor is hard to ignore, and finally, in July of 2003, the federal government took action, passing new rules requiring food producers to start including trans fats on Nutrition Facts labels by 2006, listing them separately from other fat content so consumers can see how much trouble they’re bargaining for.

If you’re like most Americans, you’ve been cutting back on dietary fat over the last 20 years or so, so you may wonder what the big deal is with trans fats.

The long-time rascal of dietary fat has been saturated fat, which is mainly found in animal products like meat, butter and cheeses, and vegetable oils like coconut and palm oils. They’re considered the “bad fats” because they can raise your LDL cholesterol level, which increases your risk for coronary artery disease.

But they’ve got nothing on trans fats. Also referred to as “trans fatty acids,” trans fats occur naturally only in tiny amounts. Most of us are getting trans fats made artificially, through the commercial process of hydrogenation, and we’re consuming them in mass quantities.

Adding hydrogen to unsaturated vegetable oils will make them solid at room temperature. Think of that gleaming white goop that comes in a can. This is also how margarine is made from liquid vegetable oils.

Though unsaturated fats are generally less harmful—though not less fattening—than saturated fats, the process of hydrogenation alters them at the molecular level and turns them into trans fats, making them assume many of the characteristics of saturated fats.

Like saturated fats, these trans fats in commercial food products will offer the benefit of a longer shelf life. But they also come with the downside, because like saturated fats, trans fats raise the “bad” LDL cholesterol that accumulates in arteries.

The FDA estimated that informing consumers about trans fat content on food labels could prevent 7,600 to 17,000 cases of coronary heart disease each year, to say nothing of all those deaths.

The new Nutrition Facts labels will not have to indicate any daily value percentage for trans fats, but a footnote will be included saying that the intake of trans fats should be “as low as possible.”

So until those rules come into effect, there are some ways to tell if the products you are consuming contain the nepharious trans fats.

Know Thy Enemy

Like tobacco, a little bit of trans fat once or twice probably wouldn’t harm you. It’s the cumulative effect over time that does the damage. And want to talk accumulation? Trans fats appear in more than 40 percent of standard grocery items!

Just knowing the usual suspects is a good start in protecting yourself. Many processed foods contain trans fats. Foods like french fries, fried chicken, fish sticks or virtually any batter-dipped and fried foods will contain trans fats because they are fried in hydrogenated fat.

Trans fats are also found in almost all margarines. They’re also in most pastries and doughnuts. Chips, cookies and microwave popcorn are about the biggest carriers of trans fats.

In fact, most commercial snack foods are guaranteed to be trans fat carriers. It just makes sense, doesn’t it? Food producers are looking to get that longer shelf life and satsify customers’ flavor expectations by keeping their products fresher longer.

But next time you’re savoring a Danish, just keep that glob of lardy white goop in mind. Because while trans fats can mean munching pleasure for your mouth, they’ll cause nothing but problems for your heart.

Through Thick & Thin:

As dangerous as they are, trans fats are not listed on food labels as such. So to tell if a product has trans fat in it, look for the words “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” on the ingredient list. The higher in the ingredient list that hydrogenated oils are listed, the more trans fats there are in the product.

This is one case where creating a food product did not have the desired results. Trans fat does not occur naturally and was developed to help processed foods last longer while making them palatable. Unfortunately its effects on human physiology were never fully researched until 50 years after its development because it was assumed that vegetable oils derived from plant sources were safe. As science has learned more about the effects of different fats on the body this is no longer true. While some types of fat are safe others such as saturated fats and trans fats both are capable of raising cholesterol levels to unsafe levels.

Trans fats are bad for the simple reason that they raise the level of LDL cholesterol in the blood stream. LDL, or low density lipoproteins, are the bad half of the cholesterol equation. A high level of LDL cholesterol in the blood stream leads to excessive plaque build-up which blocks and clogs the arteries. This increase the risk for coronary artery disease which is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, particularly if any of these plaque formations breaks free of the artery wall in the form of a blood clot.

The other half of the cholesterol equation is high density lipoproteins, or HDL cholesterol, which is the good cholesterol. It is considered beneficial because it function is to pick up the excess bad LDL cholesterol in the blood stream and return it to the liver where it is disposed of and excreted out of the body. Trans fat lowers HDL levels while increasing LDL levels which is the exact opposite of what we need to have happen in the prevention of heart disease.

There are alternatives to trans fat and saturated fat. Food and food products such as olive oil, peanut oil, and canola oil contain monounsaturated fats, which when eaten in moderation can lower blood cholesterol levels. Another good choice are foods that are rich in Omega-3 fatty acids such as fish and nuts. Omega-3’s have been shown to help protect against the risk of heart disease and its complications.

Although many food manufacturers and restaurants are moving away from trans fats it still is important to read the nutrition labels on the food products you buy. Avoid restaurants that continue to use trans fat in their cooking processes and stop using cooking oils that are high in trans fat and saturated fat for home cooking. Doing these simple things can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease for you and your family.

Relax, don’t panic. Just by taking a couple of preventive steps, you can have your cake and eat it, and by that I mean that you can eat your cakes, pies, cookies, and still protect your arteries. If you are wondering how that’s possible, here is how: watch out for trans fats and stay away from them as much as possible.

What are trans fats?

Trans fats are the worst of all fats. Hydrogenated oils or trans fats, as they are usually called, are produced artificially by inserting molecules of hydrogen in vegetable oils, a process called hydrogenation. Through this process, the oil, which is liquid at room temperature, changes it original form and becomes solid. In addition, the new fat ends up with an unnatural chemical structure.

Why do you need to stay away from trans fats?

Trans fats can hurt because:

• Through the manufacturing process, the liquid oil becomes solid or saturated; saturated fat can get stuck in your arteries. In addition, eating too much saturated fat may cause your liver to produce more cholesterol than your body needs.

• Because of the hydrogenation process, the original oil ends up with a different chemical structure. The unnatural shapes of trans fats cause our cells to become malformed and to malfunction. And that includes the cells of the heart and arteries.

• They raise LDL cholesterol, the “bad” guy. This is the type of cholesterol responsible for clogging the arteries.

• They lower HDL cholesterol, the “good” guy. This is the one you need in abundance to clean your arteries.

• They damage the lining of the arteries, setting the stage for the formation of plaque. Plaque also clogs your arteries.

So, what products should you stay away from during the holidays to avoid trans fats?

You probably have guessed by now. During the holiday season (and this goes also for the rest of the year) you need to pay particular attention to commercial baked goods containing high amounts of fat such as cakes, pies, cookies, croissants, donuts, ice cream, and the like.

Does this mean you have to go through the holidays without having a cookie or a piece of cake?

No. What you need to do is minimize the potential harm trans fats can cause. How? By doing the following:

• When buying commercial baked goods always read the label. If the label indicates the product has any amount of trans fats don’t buy it. The report issued by the Institute of Medicine in 2002 doesn’t set maximum levels for trans fats but food authorities believe any amount above zero is a risk.

• Check also the ingredients on the label and look for hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil. Food manufacturers do not have to list the amount of trans fats if the total fat in the food is less than 0.5 grams per serving. As a safety measure, don’t buy products that list this type of oil as part of the ingredients.

• Dust off your favorite recipes for cookies, pies, and cakes and do some baking at home. Choose a recipe that uses butter instead or margarine. In the past we assumed that margarine was better for the heart because it’s produced from vegetable oils and has no cholesterol; however, solid margarine is made from hydrogenated oils and contains large amounts of trans fats.

• Email your favorite cookie recipe to those friends and family members who like to show up at your door on Christmas day with commercial baked cookies as a present. They might take the hint.

Conclusion

Health authorities are concerned that the consumption of trans fats might have contributed to the 20th century epidemic of coronary heart disease because they are compounds that have unnatural shapes. But if you follow these few guidelines, you will have taken a big step towards the protection of your heart and arteries. And what is even better, you won’t have to deal with a guilty conscience on January the 2nd.

Remember, however, to practice moderation when it comes to amounts and portions; after all, baked goods can be high in calories since they contain large amounts of fat and sugar.

The reason they are so bad is because trans fats have been proven to significantly raise levels of harmful LDL cholesterol, clogging arteries with fatty plaques.  They are much more dangerous than saturated fats which are found in products such as butter and cream cheese.  Nutritional labels often have a low number like 2, 3 or 4 next to the trans fat content section so we often think that’s a good thing.  How would we know how unhealthy that is!  Recent surveys have shown that there has been essentially no education on this subject.

American Heart Association advises that anything over 2 grams per day is unhealthy and 0 grams is the preferred number.  Dining out or taking out makes watching these numbers rather difficult, after all who wants to ruin the experience by researching every the nutritional content of every meal.  As a result, some major cities like New York and Philadelphia have already or soon will put a ban on trans fats in restaurants.

To avoid consuming these harmful fats obviously it’s a good idea to check labels when grocery shopping.  Try to avoid processed foods like snacks or baked goods like cookies, prepackaged donuts, or muffins.  Just because a label says little or no trans fats does not mean it’s healthy, you must look at the overall ingredients.  Hopefully, moving forward there will be more straight forward talk and information on this subject.  We will just have to make due for now, but remember – knowledge is power!