Healthful Eating: Avoiding Trans Fats

What the Girls Scout Cookies, Starbucks, and the Big Apple have in common? The answer is: they are all eliminating trans fats from their products. Apparently this artificial ingredient, also known as partially hydrogenated oil and hydrogenated oil, is contained in all processed foods that include in their ingredients partially hydrogenated oils or shortening, such as margarines, frying fats, crackers, baked goods, chips, cookies, and many more. Trans fats are also considered by many doctors the worst kind of fats because it may be a contributing factor to several negative health effects, one of the reasons why many food producers are going trans free. To maintain a healthful diet, consumers need to know where these fats came from, how they affect the human body and how to avoid them.

Trans fats are vegetable oils, artificially and chemically modified by a process called hydrogenation, which consists in bubbling hydrogen gas through the vegetable oil, changing the chemical structure of the fat from liquid to solid (Magee, 2003). After this process, the transformed fat acts as preservative increasing significantly the products’ shelf life. This fat also gives foods a better taste and texture (Mann, 2006). In the case of frying fats, they will get larger stability during deep frying (Mozaffarian, Katan, Ascherio, Stampfer, & Willett, 2006, Physiological Effects of Trans Fatty Acids, para.1).

The historical development of these fats started around 1897, when a French chemist, Paul Sabatier, developed the hydrogenation process. Sabatier, Paul. (2007). Later, in 1911, consumers in America were introduced to CriscoÐ'®, a vegetable shortening, the first of many manufactured food products containing trans fat. However, trans fats did not become popular until World War II, when butter was rationed and margarine use began to increase considerably (American Heart Association, 2007).

But evidence against trans fats has accumulated over the years. Around the 1990s the awareness of the adverse health effects associated to their consumption begun when numerous studies were conducted, revealing a link that associated the ingestion of trans fats and the increase of LDL (bad) cholesterol (American Heart Association, 2007). Specifically in 1993, the Food and Drug Administration was advised by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization, to require food processors to include the amount of this controversial ingredient in the Nutrition Facts labels. Then in 2003, 10 years later, the FDA announced that by 2006 all foods containing trans fats should show the content in the label. Finally, in January 2006 the trans fat labeling became mandatory (Jacobson, 2006).

But one may wonder, what makes these manufactured fats so bad that the Food and Drug Administration placed in effect this new regulation? Many doctors agree that compared to other kinds of fats such as saturated fats, or unsaturated fats, trans fats are the worst kind due to the harmful health effects they may cause when consumed. For example, Alice Lichtenstein, professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Boston, when interviewed by Mann for WebMd (2006), indicated that trans fats not only raise the levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or “bad” cholesterol, but they also can decrease the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or “good” cholesterol, effects considered to increase the risks of developing heart disease and stroke. Saturated fats, in the other hand are known to raise both, LDL and HDL cholesterol levels at the same time.

If the threat of coronary disease is not enough reason to avoid this artificial fat, some other studies indicate the possibility of diabetes as another risk associated to the consumption of trans fats, although the evidence at this point is not conclusive, and more testing is necessary to support this argument (Mozaffarian et al, 2006). Moreover, nutrition researchers at Harvard School of Public Health have recently discovered that these manufactured fats could also be responsible for causing infertility. Even though it has not been confirmed yet and more research is being conducted, Jorge Navarro, MD, member of Harvard School of Public Health and leader of the mentioned research, recommends that women planning pregnancies should cut trans fats from their diets, at least until this finding is corroborated: “Avoiding trans fats is a good idea for many reasons”, he says, “and one of them may be reducing infertility risk” (Boyles, 2007).

Many healthcare professionals believe that avoiding the intake of these artificial fats, or at least reduce it, is beneficial for the heart’s health. To accomplish it, one needs to look for the right clues in the packaging labels. To make healthier choices when buying food, consumers may want to read the Nutrition Facts labels closely, and look for the list of ingredients. This list identifies all the ingredients contained in the product from the ones in the greatest amount to the least. If they list “partially hydrogenated oil” one can be sure the product contains certain amount of trans fat (Zelman, 2003).

Even if the food label says: “0 grams Trans Fat”, the product may contain a minimum amount of .49 grams, since the Food and Drug Administration allows manufacturers to list the amount as 0 grams as long as the content is less than 0.5 grams per serving. This may seem a trivial amount; however, in case of consuming multiple servings one should consider that these grams add up, and the total intake of trans fat could result in a significantly higher dose (Mozaffarian et al, 2006, Consumer Choices section, para. 2).

Nevertheless, many products that consumers gather from the supermarket shelves mainly because these are part of their regular shopping list, have healthier alternatives, perhaps a different brand that does not include trans fat. This is the kind of situation when labels come in handy, one may want to take advantage of the information provided, and compare different brands to make the best choice possible. It is important to remember that the most favorable selection of all is to go for foods that are the closest to their natural state as possible: fresh fruits and veggies, or frozen fresh, the same with meats and fish. However, when purchasing processed food is inevitable, choosing the version with the lowest fat can make a difference.

Additionally, when cooking meals at home, consumers who want to cut out trans fats should replace them with good fats: use trans free soft margarines, like Promise and Olivio; and cooking oils containing monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat,