Trans fats and Plutonium
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Have you ever eaten plutonium? Me neither. But I know for sure that if I ate it my body would have difficulties digesting it and I probably would have severe health problems afterwards. The same thing goes with trans fats. Even though trans fatty acids are far from being plutonium they still cause health problems for people eating them.
Doctors, nutritionists and researchers are all agreeing that trans fats are bad for you. They are researched and linked to coronary heart disease and numerous other severe diseases as well. In 1994 it was estimated that as much as 30 000 people in the US died from heart disease related to trans fats.
Trans fats are mostly artificial fats created by bubbling hydrogen through vegetable oil. The chemical reaction causes the oil to harden and is called hydrogenation. If you hydrogenate vegetable oils completely you transform the fats from being unsaturated to being saturated, changing the chemical structure of the fatty acids. If you only hydrogenate the oil partially, creating a softer fat, you are left with large amounts of trans fatty acids.
The soft fat that you have after partially hydrogenating are attractive for the food industry as they are cheaper than butter, have increased shelf life, decreased need of refrigeration and decreased rancidity for long term use as frying oils. This in combination with the anti saturated fat craze of the nineties have made them popular substitutes in cookies, cakes, popcorn and deep fried products like potato chips and french fries.
I have made a list with data from USDA of the products with the highest amounts of trans fats:
Trans monoenoic:
- Shortening, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated ) for baking and confections (40%)
- USDA Commodity Food, shortening, all purpose, soybean (partially hydrogenated) and cottonseed (31%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy ( partially hydrogenated), all purpose(30%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated ), palm, principal uses icings and fillings (28%)
- Oil, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated) and cottonseed, principal use as a tortilla shortening (27%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, canola (partially hydrogenated) oil for deep fat frying (23%)
- Margarine, industrial, non-dairy, cottonseed, soy oil (partially hydrogenated ), for flaky pastries (22%)
- Margarine, industrial, soy and partially hydrogenated soy oil, use for baking, sauces and candy (19%)
- Margarine-like shortening, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated), cottonseed, and soy, principal use flaky pastries(18%)
- Margarine-butter blend, soybean oil and butter (14%)
Trans polyenoic:
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy ( partially hydrogenated), all purpose (5%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, canola (partially hydrogenated) oil for deep fat frying (4%)
- Shortening, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated ) and corn for frying (4%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated), principal uses popcorn and flavoring vegetables (4%)
- Oil, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated) and cottonseed, principal use as a tortilla shortening (4%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated), multiuse for non-dairy butter flavor (3%)
- Shortening, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated), pourable liquid fry shortening (3%)
- Margarine, industrial, non-dairy, cottonseed, soy oil (partially hydrogenated ), for flaky pastries (3%)
- Oil, vegetable, industrial, soy (partially hydrogenated ), palm, principal uses icings and fillings (3%)
- USDA Commodity Food, shortening, type III, creamy liquid, soybean and soybean (partially hydrogenated) (3%)
I don’t know which ones are the worst of the two kinds of trans fats, but I know for sure that I will really stay away from shortenings, margarines and frying oils. This is the easy part. What is difficult are when these products are added to other products. You can not, even when reading on shortening and margarine food labels, find the amount of trans fats in the products. You think that the product is healthy as it contains plenty of mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids that you were taught were healthy.
The take home message would be – stay away from processed food at all costs and live a healthy life.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortening
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