Hydrogenated oils & how to avoid this heart attack starter....

Today's Post: Friday, 1-20-2012

Research was done that found conclusively that ingesting artificial trans fats from hydrogenated oils caused the bodies of the people eating it to increase the amount of small particle LDL in their blood.

Oops! Small particle LDL is one of the direct causes of heart disease!

These particles are both glue-like and tiny enough to fit into the molecular chinks in your artery walls.

So they are something like pouring sand into an engine that’s small enough it get through the screens due to its small size.

But there’s more. They are sticky and tend to stay in your artery walls once there.

Worse, they either cause high inflammation by doing this or the omega 6 oils they are made out of do this or both.

Guess what your body’s defense is to harms and small tears in the inner surfaces of your blood vessels (the endothelium)?

It sends in and adds on glue like patches!

In small amounts this is healthy because it keeps your blood from leaking out of small tears.

But the small particle LDL and inflammation combined lay an extra foundation for this stuff to add to and ensure your body does extra. That begins to stiffen and close up your blood vessels. Then if you have a big piece of fat or some of this plaque break off and stick into the now very narrow passage, you get an obstructive stroke or a heart attack.

So hydrogenated oils cause a process that directly causes heart disease and the risk of strokes and heart attacks. It also causes ED and PAD, peripheral artery disease, and angina.

If you’d like to avoid having this process go on, how much of this stuff should you eat?

About the amount of arsenic, another slow poison, as close to zero as possible!

So, if you see something that suggests you limit your intake of this stuff to less than most people now eat, is that good?

Eating less is certainly better than eating more. But it’s not great advice either.

It’s about like having a big pile of dried leaves and shredded paper recycling you want not to burn. Yes, tossing three lit matches on it is safer than tossing 10 of them. But the safe number is zero!

Since it does add to shelf life, replaces more expensive fats and oils, and doesn’t cost much, hydrogenated oils are still in a lot of food left over from the days people didn’t know how harmful it is and was.

So if it’s actually still hard to avoid eating it in very many of today’s foods, how can you avoid it?

There are three ways.

1. If a food has a label, you can look up to see if it has any trans fats other than zero listed. If it has a number of grams of trans fats, take a pass. Don’t buy it or eat it or do so again if you have been before!

2. But you have to take a second step to avoid trans fats by using the label. The people who wanted to keep using hydrogenated oils got a ruling that allows them to hide small to medium amounts and still claim zero trans fats per serving!

If what they say is a serving has less than half a gram of trans fats, they are allowed to put zero on the label.

But often the average amount people eat of these tiny “servings” is often actually from 5 to 10 of them. That means that a product with a fair amount of trans fats, .48 grams per serving which qualifies for zero on the label, will cause you to eat 2.4 to 4.8 grams of trans fats. Yikes!

They are required to list the ingredients.

So check out the list and if ANY hydrogenated oils or partially hydrogenated oils are listed, the food has trans fats. Don’t buy it or eat it or do so again if you have been before!

This can be a bit obnoxious at times. I used to really like a meaty canned chili but was shocked to find it had several grams of trans fats. I put the can back on the shelf and contacted the company saying I can’t eat the chili and couldn’t they please find a way to make it without that problem. They responded by mailing me coupons for free cans of their chili.

Oh well.

Similarly, unlike some people, I never really liked Oreo cookies, so not doing so at all any more was no hassle. But some store bought cookies, with chocolate chips or nuts and oatmeal cookies and some others, I’d like to allow myself and eat some every other month or so. But unless such cookies are home-made they are too harmful to eat that often. Almost all commercially baked cookies have partially hydrogenated oil in their list of ingredients.

The third way to avoid trans fats and hydrogenated oils is to know what foods are made out of them or now have them as an added ingredient

With some foods this happens often enough it’s worth usually to almost always avoid them when you go out to eat AND always reading the labels if you buy them at the store.

3. Know the list of foods that are made out of hydrogenated oils or almost always contain them and almost always take a pass on eating any.

I was fortunate enough to learn about reading label and discovered many of these foods that way.

But there was an excellent article from Health.com dated 12-20-2011 that was featured on Yahoo that listed 22 of these foods!

It had the foods I knew about and several more!

So here is the combined list with my comments.:

1. French fries in fast food places and similar foods such as potato cakes tend to be fried in hydrogenated oils. Since they are high glycemic and fattening too, eat no more of the ever -- or eat half as much of them 10 times less often when you go out. Or make them at home -- which means you can use extra virgin olive oil and you’ll also have them far less often.

2. Pie crusts.

This one breaks my heart since I used to love ordering pie as a stand alone treat or dessert when we went out to eat.

But commercial pie crusts are virtually all made with hydrogenated oils.

(Now I order pie far less and just eat the filing on my piece.)

If you make pie at home, you can use nut meal or flour or 100 % whole grain or 100 % gluten free buckwheat for the crust and use butter, ideally from cattle fed only grass or coconut oil.

3. Margarine is made out of hydrogenated oils.

You can get “margarine’s” that are horrible tasting substitutes and one that’s mostly corn oil with less hydrogenated oils. It tastes OK but the high omega 6 corn oil also helps cause heart disease from the high inflammation it helps cause. So take a complete pass on buying or eating margarine.

Get butter instead. Don’t eat it often or use very much. Heat it as gently or as little as possible. And do your best to find butter that comes from cattle fed only grass. (One German company exports one now.)

4. Shortening is made out of hydrogenated oils.

It once was made out of lard from animal fat. Today with lard coming from grain fed cows lard is little better.

Take a pass. A BIG one.

5. 6. 7. & 8. all follow from this problem with shortening.

5. Most cake mixes;
6. Most frosting mixes or commercial frosting in containers;
7. Most pancake and waffle mix;
8. and, virtually all biscuits and biscuit mixes contain hydrogenated oils.

9. & 10. Fried chicken and fried fish often to always in some places contain hydrogenated oils. No wonder people who eat them often, common in the South in the United States, tend to have bad health.

11. Always read the label on ice creams. A surprising percentage still use and contain hydrogenated oils. This one I found by reading the labels!

12. Non Dairy creamer is almost universally made out of hydrogenated oils! Yikes! Way too many people who drink coffee now poison themselves several times a day with this stuff. Ouch!

Use small amounts of light cream (sold as half and half though it has no milk in it) or use small amounts of 2% lowfat milk or almond milk instead. Or drink your coffee black using a bit of ice water to cool it instead of a creamer.

13. Microwave popcorn is usually very dreadful stuff!

The kinds with any kind of “butter” or oil are all far more than 50% hydrogenated oils.

The high glycemic popped corn is not much better for you with no oil.

Eat as little as you can stand of any popcorn. Hardly ever use microwave popcorn and only do that AFTER you read the label. And never get any with extra “butter” added unless you, yourself add real butter to it.

14. Besides biscuits and pie crusts almost all commercial baked goods from cookies to cakes to breads to pastries to rolls use hydrogenated oils.

The refined grains they are almost all made out of are fattening besides. Eat as little as you can stand and never more than a few times a year.

Good tasting but horribly bad for you and fattening stuff unfortunately!

15. Biscuit based breakfasts have the same problem and contain hydrogenated oils. This has become a very common fast food offering lately.

16. Hamburgers, hot dogs, and sausage, and as I found out, canned chili, usually contain trans fats and hydrogenated oils.

(The hot dogs and sausage also contain preservatives recently found to be almost as heart harmful as hydrogenated oils.)

This is unfortunate since some better quality hot dogs and most sausage is quite tasty.

The good news is that it may be possible to make them without hydrogenated oils or trans fats and minimize the preservatives somehow.

But until that’s done, you are better off not eating these foods.

The Health.com article said that some canned turkey chili was free of hydrogenated oils. And, you can get canned vegetarian chili free of hydrogenated oils. These use beans only. Whole foods carries them.

(If you get beef from cattle fed 100 % on grass and an at home meat grinder, it is possible to make hamburgers that aren’t this harmful. But eating hamburgers in most restaurants and fast food places is likely a very bad idea for your heart health.)

17. Most frozen dinners contain hydrogenated oils.

Since they make them taste good and microwaving them makes them fast for lunch or dinner, this is unfortunate.

But the upside is that foods you prepare at home, in batches on the weekend if needed, will often cost far less.

18. Packaged creamy puddings often contain hydrogenated oils.

19. Most packaged beef jerky and meat sticks contain hydrogenated oils.


20. Crunchy noodles both packaged in the store and in restaurant foods contain hydrogenated oils.

21. Most commercial crackers , just like the cookies, contain hydrogenated oils.

22. Much to my great surprise, many regular breads contain hydrogenated oils.
This can even be true for 100 % whole grain breads. So do as I did to find this out and always read the labels.

23. Candy bars often contain hydrogenated oils.

I had several favorites from one company. Then I happened to read the labels. Oh my. The all had hydrogenated oils. Too bad. I no longer buy or eat those.

So, if you get candy bars, always read the label.

24. Peanut butter. Just like candy bars, you have to read the label.

I have to admit, after reading the label on one popular peanut butter and finding both added sugar and hydrogenated oils, I was appalled to see it advertised on TV as being great for Moms to buy for their kids!

The FDA never called them on it either! If they did, it was never publicized. And that peanut butter is still on store shelves.

***
If you are wondering what you CAN eat after this list, look up the foods in the DASH and Mediterranean diets.

Eating far more nonstarchy vegetables and eating whole fresh fruit helps in both.

Wild caught fish, meat from 100% grass fed animals, and safely harvested seafood OR very low fat and fat trimmed grain-fed meat or chicken in small servings on occasion and nonfat or low fat dairy work.

Nuts, and beans and lentils work.

Extra virgin olive oil works well.

And some whole grain foods may not be bad if you aren’t fat or trying to lose it.

After seeing this list, the wonder is not that half of the people die of heart disease, it seems the wonder is that the percentage is that low!