Trans Fats - An Overview

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).

There is a distinction between good trans fats and bad trans fats. There is some evidence that the good trans can help you with fat loss, muscle building, and even cancer prevention, while the bad trans fats have been shown to cause heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and the general blubbering of your body.

There are basically 3 types of fats:

Saturated Fats
Unsaturated Fats
Trans Fats

Trans fats are the result of a process called hydrogenation where they take relatively healthy oil and turn it into a solid form to help prolong the shelf life and freshness of the product. When these fats become solid, our bodies treat them more like saturated fats.

Hydrogenation is the process of heating an oil and passing hydrogen bubbles through it. The fat's density is increased, and food manufacturers use it frequently because it gives products a richer butter flavor. Saturated butter is much more expensive to use, so manufacturers reduce costs by using partially hydrogenated oils.

Trans fats nowadays are almost exclusively made from plant sources such as soya bean oil, palm oil, sunflower oil etc., and are widely used in food manufacturing because not only do they increase the shelf life but food made with trans fats can also be stored at a higher temperature, thus reducing the cost of refrigeration.

Trans fats can be found in vegetable shortenings, some margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods, and other foods. Unlike other fats, the majority of trans fats are formed when food manufacturers turn liquid oils into solid fats like shortening and hard margarine by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil in a process called hydrogenation.

Trans fats are basically vegetable fats that have been changed chemically by a process known as hydrogenation. Remember the monounsaturated fats from above had one empty "seat" without a hydrogen atom.

Trans fats have been found to be dangerous for the following reasons:

Increases bad cholesterol.(LDL) and decreases good cholesterol (HDL).
Increases triglycerides.
Causes more inflammation.
Promotes heart disease, cancer, diabetes, immune dysfunction, obesity and reproductive problems.

All of us are somewhat familiar with the term. We see a variant of it almost every time we read the label from one of the products in the pantry. It has become commonplace. Neatly tucked away between the various unpronounceable ingredients we find the words 'partially hydrogenated'.

Although trans fats were first used in margarine ... most margarines have eliminated this deadly fat. But, they're still found in many baked goods and fried foods. In fact, because of their low cost and convenience -- trans fats keep foods from spoiling -- hydrogenated oils are being used even more.

Our eyes were recently opened to the health consequences of eating those "trans-fatty acids" in our foods. Research has revealed that trans-fatty acids contribute to some cancers levels.

Animal products contain small amounts of trans fats, but the US National Dairy Council has asserted that these trans fats are different from the trans fats manufactured from vegetable oils. From these sources, trans fats may be less than 5% of the total fat content.

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