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.

Most trans fats consumed are created in the process known as partial hydorgenation of plant oils. This process was discovered at the turn of the 20th century and was first used commercially in the United States in Crisco. The ultimate goal of partial hydrogenation is to increase the melting point of the oils. This makes them more attractive for bakers and increases the shelf life of the product. Conjugated linoleic acid and vaccinia acid are two trans fats that are naturally occurring in meat and milk. It is thought that trans fats are carried from mother to child by breast milk.

The health risks of trans fats are many fold. According to the National Academy of Sciences there is no safe level of trans fats that you can consume. They base this finding on two things: 1. Trans fats provide no known benefit to the human body, 2. Trans fats increase the levels of LDL( bad cholesterol) while decreasing the levels of HDL( good cholesterol). This combination is known to lead to coronary heart disease(C.D.). C.D. is the biggest health risk from trans fats and a leading killer of people world wide.

The New England Journal of Medicine, Nurse’s Health Study, National Academy of Sciences, the list goes on forever. All of these trained medical professional have studied the effects of trans fats and believe that they greatly increase your chances of death from C.D. The number of heart related deaths that can be linked to trans fats is somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 Americans each year. There is other scientific research that points the finger at trans fats in prostate cancer, diabetes, obesity, liver problems and infertility. While there is lesser relationship between trans fat consumption and these diseases, the connection is still there.

With all of the negative facts about trans fats you may have a couple questions on your mind. What kind of regulations have the government put in place and what can I personally do to reduce the trans fats in my diet. It took the Food and Drub Administration(FDA) until 2003 to take any action. As slight as is may be.