Most of us are eating a deadly substance everyday without even realizing it. This cunning poison has been so secretive that the FDA didn’t require it to be shown separately on nutrition labels until 2006. This ingredient is so common that it’s true proof that companies don’t care about the health of its consumers and even after reading this article many people will continue consuming this unnecessary ingredient. It has been consistently proven that as little as 2% of your energy intake from this substance is linked to heart disease and this substance also increases visceral belly fat.
It has also been shown through research that this substance is linked to type 2 diabetes, increases likelihood of insulin resistance, increases bad cholesterol, decreased good cholesterol, causes systemic inflammation and has a negative effect in almost every cell in the body. That’s a pretty long list of health liabilities in a world as health conscious as ours. I’m not going to beat around the bush. This is going to be a painful article for many readers when they hear the list of foods containing this deadly ingredient because many people are just not ready to give up eating these tasty snacks and the flavor benefits this ingredient provides.
You may be asking yourself how a substance so harmful to our health be so prevalent in our food supply. The answer is quite simple. We may live in a health-conscious world, but we also live in a capitalist world with a strong desire to put the smallest dollars in and get the highest amount of dollars out.
The substance I’m referring to is Trans Fatty Acids (TFAs) or just simply trans fats. Trans fats are not found in nature and are the result of industrial hydrogenation and partial hydrogenation of unsaturated vegetable oils which alter the natural hydrogen configuration of fat molecules and causes them to take on an unnatural trans configuration. This manmade substance is a God send for snack, junk food and pastry companies. It preserves the life of food and makes food taste great. Food lasts longer because mold and bacteria won’t consume this ingredient, so why do we? Greedy companies and their lawyers have found ways to circumvent take advantage of every loophole to continue including high amounts of this ingredient in their food supply and keep consumers in the dark. One loop hole being used is the fact that the FDA says that if a serving size is less than half a gram, a company can list the serving amount as none, so companies simply make their serving sizes on the label so small until the trans-fat quantity meets this threshold. A perfect example of this loop hope being exploited is in cooking sprays. In most cooking sprays 1 serving is equal to 1/3 of a second of a spray. Although we all spray cooking oil for more than 1/3 or a second, the serving size listed on the label contains less than half a gram of trans fats.
A brief description on cholesterol
Almost everyone knows there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Saturated fats increase both good and bad cholesterol and poly and monounsaturated fats increase good cholesterol and reduce bad cholesterol but trans fats are the only fats that reduce good cholesterol while increase bad cholesterol. It’s ironic because trans fats are made from fats that naturally do the exact opposite. What’s even more ironic is that trans fats were originally created for better health. I once heard a quote from a writer say if you want high cholesterol and clogged arteries just dial 1800-Trans-fats.
rior to the 1990s trans fats were considered good for us. It wasn’t until 1996 that significant amounts of research proved otherwise, and the FDA finally passed a law 10 years later in 2006 to make consumers aware of trans fats in our food supply. New York was the first state to ban trans fats from all restaurants in July of 2007. KFC was the first nationwide fast food chain to eliminate trans fats from all their foods.
Foods you should completely avoid to insure you don’t consume trans fats.
- Cookies
- Crackers
- Biscuits
- Pastries
- Pies
- Doughnuts
- Packaged frozen foods (breaded fish and chicken)
- Corn chips
- Potato chips
- Packaged popcorn
- Some breads
- Frostings
- French fries
- Taco Shells
- Margarines
- Shortening
- Salad dressings
- Candy
- Some Cheeses
- Pancake mix
How to avoid being duped by companies and loop holes
If you want to make sure you’re not eating trans fats, just looking on the nutrition label won’t be enough. You will see trans fats listed separately as required by law but next to that, you’re likely to see 0% regardless of the high amount of trans fat it contains. It’s because companies have found a legal way to lie with low serving sizes. To avoid this loop hole you must go a step firther and look at the list of ingredients in the package and look for the words “hydrogenated” and “partially hydrogenated” oil. Hydrogenation is usually applied to corn oil, coconut oil, palm oil but not limited to just those oils, but if you see this word listed anywhere on the container or packaging It contains trans fats. Udo Erasmus, the author of “Fats that heal and fats that kill” said it best when he says if you see the “H” word on the ingredients label, then stay the “H” away from it.
Comments
