Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Why trans fats harm you & what they are in....

Today's post: Tuesday, 2-17-2009


In an online news article today Reuters online health news reports the results of a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in the February, 2009 issue.

1. The researchers found that in the 1,000 adults in the United States they surveyed in 2007, 92 % of the people had heard of trans fats (aka transfats) with 8 % who had not.

2. Of the 92%, ¾ of that group had heard that trans fats may raise the risk of heart disease. Since that is only 69 % of the entire group, that means that 31 % of the people surveyed had not yet heard that trans fats may raise the risk of heart disease.

3. Even worse, only 21 % could name three food sources for trans fats (aka transfats.)

That means that well over 79% of these people were at high risk of every kind of cardiovascular disease from heart attacks to strokes to erectile dysfunction to senility caused by vascular blockages to peripheral artery disease because they were under-informed.

A. The article pointed out that ingesting transfats increases your bad LDL cholesterol just like over-eating butter or fatty meats with high levels of saturated fats while at the same time lowering your protective HDL levels!

Research has found that ingesting transfats also increases your very dangerous triglyceride levels.

More than that, research has found that all three of these negative changes in these readings are because ingesting transfats increases the number of particles of small sized LDL that are literally so small they fit in between the molecular cracks in your blood vessel walls.

No may about this effect at all. This is a direct cause of cardiovascular and heart disease. This effect on your blood vessels is very much like pouring bacon grease down a small drain on a very cold day. A tiny bit on occasion is not a good idea. But regularly doing it, even a little each day, is a certain way to clog up the pipe.

That means that no one who knows this would ever knowingly buy or eat anything that contains transfats.

Why eat heart attack starter? Why eat any of it?

Unfortunately, because at first no one knew not to put transfats in food; and the hydrogenated vegetable oils that contain them increased the shelf life of the foods they were put in; AND were cheap to make, soon transfats were in a huge list of things. They even began appearing in place of butter and other fats that taste better but cost more and have a shorter shelf life.
B. It’s gradually changing. But transfats are still in most of the foods they were originally added to. That means almost everything you buy to eat that has any fat in it, may have transfats. You literally HAVE to know what most of what these foods are and, where possible, never eat them at all unless you read the label that shows they are OK by BOTH tests – zero transfats (aka trans fats) AND no partially or wholly hydrogenated oils at all on the label.

If, as at least 79 % of these people did not, you don’t know what transfats are in – and you don’t know how to find out, your health is at very high risk.

Anything that contains ANY hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils has transfats. And that’s so even if the label says it has zero transfats because it’s legal to label 0.49 grams per serving of transfat content as zero. So, since you may eat three servings a day of that food, you actually would ingest 1.47 grams of transfats if you were to ignore that the label also says it contains partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Of course if the label says it has transfats, it does. So to avoid ingesting transfats, you have avoid BOTH foods that show any transfat content other then zero AND you have to avoid any food that contains any partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

C. Here’s what transfats and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil have been found in.:

First, vegetable shortening is 100 % partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and virtually made out of transfats. (Unfortunately, this means that almost all commercially baked pies have transfats in their crust or have until just recently. And even many home cooked pie crusts also are still made with shortening.) To simplify your life, the best solution is to completely avoid vegetable shortening. That means to never eat pie crust or biscuits you don’t KNOW were made with butter or a tropical oil instead. (That’s why I only eat pie filling and NOT the pie crust if I’m given a piece of pie from a source I am not totally sure of.)

Similarly, almost all margarine should stay on the shelf for the same reason. Some special margarines have no transfats. But the only one of those I ever tasted that I could stand the taste of uses corn oil which is best avoided for its high omega 6 content. To simplify your life, the best solution is to completely avoid margarine.

Third, until recently, to avoid transfats has meant NEVER eating in the normal fast food places. They fried their meat, French fries, and other hot food in nothing but hydrogenated vegetable oils. Many still do.

Lastly, here’s a partial list of other foods that have had hydrogenated vegetable oils and transfats in them and often still do.:

Ice cream; bread; cake mix and pancake mix and frozen waffles; candy bars; peanut butter, including one brand of peanut butter sold to moms as being great for their kids!; virtually all commercially made desserts, baked goods, and snacks – including the potato chips still automatically handed out with sandwiches in restaurants. It also includes microwaved and movie theatre popcorn.

D. The only good news is that most of these foods are otherwise made with refined grains or other high glycemic and starchy ingredients that are best eaten very rarely if at all; and also tend to be heavily salted or contain a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup. So if you know to avoid those things, it helps you to avoid transfats too

But this still means that in almost every grocery store, and in too many of every kind of restaurant it can be very hard to find foods that do NOT have this heart attack starter in them.

In some places, partially hydrogenated oils and transfats have been banned. Until that ban is nationwide and rigorously enforced, you really have to be very careful.

Just two years ago less than 21 % of the people surveyed knew how to be careful while 31 % didn’t even know WHY to be careful. Even worse, most of those who knew why to be careful likely thought they were OK if they just cut back some. The evidence is that ingesting ANY hydrogenated vegetable oils, or heart attack starter, is harmful. And few people then knew that.

This post is to make sure that YOU know about how dangerous transfats and hydrogenated vegetable oils are AND how to avoid them.

Labels: , , , , , ,

1 Comments:

Blogger David said...

This comment is not directly relevant except that knowing how to avoid tranfats in your food and doing it prevents the cardiovascular disease that is a main cause of ED.

Of more importance, if you have ED, you probably have cardiovascular disease and/or high blood sugar. And it may not be safe to take viagra unless you first take effective steps to reverse these underlying health problems.

The good news is that you can reverse or improve these health problems without drugs as several of our previous posts explain.

1:58 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home