Much worse bad news about trans fats....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 8-2-2012

Why eat heart attack starter?!

1.  Hydrogenated vegetable oils cause heart disease two ways. 

The hydrogenated part that causes the trans fats not found in nature was proven in research to greatly increase the kind of small particle LDL that literally is so tiny it tends to stick into the molecular chinks in your blood vessel wall.

This small particle LDL is a direct cause of heart disease since this starts and continues the process of closing up your blood vessels with plaque.

That means that eating hydrogenated vegetable oils is a direct cause of heart disease.

Secondly, most people today take in far too much omega 6 oils.  Eating too much omega 6 oils causes excessive and chronic inflammation.  When the inner surface of your blood vessels become over inflamed, this also causes and continues the process of closing up your blood vessels with plaque when your body tries to cover up the damage.

The vegetable oils used for hydrogenated fats are all cheap oils high in omega 6 such as corn and soy oil or canola oil.

So as you can imagine, it will pay you to eat very little trans fats and hydrogenated oils.

2.  To me it has always been very simple.  This stuff causes heart disease.  It’s quite literally heart attack starter.  I want to avoid heart disease.  So I’ve recommended eating NO trans fats or hydrogenated oils. 

I’ve not consciously or voluntarily eaten any foods containing hydrogenated vegetable oil since I learned this or very, very rarely.  I may have eaten some in restaurant food that I didn’t know contained hydrogenated vegetable oils.  But I eat things likely to contain it that I know about once or twice or three times a year or less.

Why eat heart attack starter?!

In many things, doing something in moderation is often safe.

Here are two examples:

Despite the horrors caused by excessive intake of salt, low moderate intake is safe and desirable. 

(Excessive salt intake will hurt you far more and in far more ways than was known until this year!  Our last post was on just that topic.  Yet even salt is OK in low moderation.)

Despite the horrors caused by excessive intake of alcoholic beverages, low and low moderate intake is usually safe and is actually health protective. Drinking that much red wine is particularly heart protective for example.

So, understandably, given how unbelievably many foods contain trans fats and hydrogenated oils, some people who wrote about and gave health advice in person said to just eat less trans fats and hydrogenated oils. 

They were thinking of things like salt and alcohol that ARE OK in moderation of course.  They also may have thought people more likely to eat less than stop eating things containing it completely.

I’ve long disagreed with that and have said that I think the evidence shows that as close to absolutely none at all is a far better policy for intake of trans fats and hydrogenated oils.

Why eat ANY heart attack starter?!

Eating trans fats and hydrogenated oils is a direct cause of plaque build up in your blood vessels.  This builds up slowly over years and years. 

So by eating just a little bit every week, you become likely to suffer heart attacks, stroke, ED, mental decline, and other diseases caused by poor or completely stopped blood circulation.

The news today is that I was far more correct than I knew!

I was at least TEN times more correct than I knew in fact!

I found out in an email from Dr Al Sears that your body also has trouble getting rid of trans fats and hydrogenated oils.

This is so extreme that 51 days or nearly two months after you eat this junk today, half of it is still in you causing harm!  This is a half life.  So 51 days after that half of that is still in you, etc.

That’s beyond Yikes! or Ouch!  That’s an “Oh my God!” fact.

This means that even eating just a little bit of trans fats or hydrogenated oils most days of every week is deadly.

After just a few weeks let alone several years, you practically have enough trans fats or hydrogenated oils build up in you it’s as if you ate a whole can of Crisco!

This finding elevates the risk from small regular amounts of trans fats or hydrogenated oils to the level of heart disease caused by heavy smoking.

Do yourself a favor and please don’t go there!  Or learn how to avoid it and stop doing it!

There are three main ways to avoid eating trans fats or hydrogenated oils.

1.  Always read labels. 

Some of the very worst foods will actually list that they contain trans fats on the label. 

I was horrified and very disappointed to find that my until then favorite canned all beef chili had several grams of trans fats listed.  I’ve never bought it or eaten it since then.

This news suggests you should always do the same.  Don’t buy this stuff or eat it.2. 

2.  The shelf life boosting and low cost of hydrogenated oils was very valuable to food packagers.  And trans fats or hydrogenated oils were in so many of their foods, they came up with a way to LEAVE trans fats or hydrogenated oils in their foods but legally list zero on the trans fats section of the label.

The deal they made was that up to half a gram of trans fats or hydrogenated oils could be in each serving could be legally LISTED as zero.

This is completely inaccurate of course.  And this news suggests that eating even one serving of half a gram a day of trans fats or hydrogenated oils will harm you.

But the second part of this is even worse!  They then changed how much a serving was until the amount most people actually would eat at one time was something like five of the new servings or more.

The math on that is scary.  This means that a normal serving of such a food with .49 grams of trans fat per tiny serving can easily have and likely does have 2.45 grams of trans fats.

So, how do you avoid this deliberate hiding of the trans fats or hydrogenated oils in that food?

Mercifully, the label on the food has a list of ingredients.  Since there are hydrogenated oils in the food, it’s listed in the ingredient list as something like “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.”

So the procedure you need to use is to check the trans fats first.  If any is listed above zero, don’t buy or eat that food.

If zero is listed, go to this second step.  Then check the ingredients list.  And, if ANY kind of hydrogenated oil is listed, don’t buy or eat that food either.

3.  Learn the list of foods that are almost always filled with or made out of hydrogenated vegetable oil. 

With those you don’t even need to read the label.   Don’t buy or eat those foods.

a) Shortening such as Crisco is close to or at 100% made out of hydrogenated vegetable oil.

b) Most commercially baked pies use shortening to make the crust unfortunately.

That’s a real shame since the fruit fillings in pies are often almost OK healthwise as long as you don’t eat them and their high sugar content very often.  And pie crust tastes good with the fillings.

But since I learned this, if I’m served pie I don’t KNOW for sure was made with butter or butter from cows fed only grass or with no oil at all, I simply assume the crust is harmful.

That’s because it almost certainly IS harmful to eat.  And, I just eat the filling.  I carefully avoid eating any of the crust.

c) Don’t eat baked foods from commercial bakeries or sold in grocery stores or fast food places that are unlabeled.

(Some specialty bakeries with upscale or health oriented customers will bake things at least by special request that do NOT contain hydrogenated vegetable oils.

Many cooks prefer to use butter in their home made baked goods since the foods taste better. So, many times home made baked goods are OK in moderation since the sugar and the refined grain are the only harmful parts.

Eating those things once or twice a month can be OK for some people.)

d) Never eat microwave popcorn.  Microwave popcorn has a chemical that can hurt you lungs in addition to having a quadruple dose of hydrogenated vegetable oils!

e)  Avoid eating in most fast food places and always avoid the Fries and chips.  They often fry ALL their foods in hydrogenated vegetable oil.  And the Fries often have the most hydrogenated vegetable oil. 

(McDonald’s and fast food places in New York City now use omega 6 oils that are NOT hydrogenated.  The omega 6 oils should be eaten only seldom.  But they do spare you from most of the hydrogenated vegetable oils you would have gotten before.)

4.  These foods also have a second way to avoid them.

They almost all contain other ingredients your health will be better to almost totally avoid most of the time.

These include sugar, the far worse for you high fructose corn syrup, refined grains, and excess salt.  Many of snack foods contain MSG or related compounds as well. 

All these ingredients except the salt are each effective and unnecessary fatteners too.

People who eat foods with these ingredients several times a day are virtually all extra fat because of it.

The better news is that such people can lose most of that excess fat by simply eating real foods like vegetables and health OK proteins and oils instead.

Over a period of many months this excess fat will disappear with no increase in hunger.

ALL of these ingredients are harmful if you eat these things more than once or twice a week.  But most of them contain hydrogenated vegetable oils too!

For those foods, more than once or twice a YEAR is too much we now know.

So if you avoid them, you escape the even more harmful hydrogenated vegetable oils too.

These include virtually all packaged desserts and snacks and microwave popcorn and commercial baked goods including pie crusts.

Many people have not yet heard how hydrogenated vegetable oils cause heart disease and other diseases of circulation.

And, very few if any who did know how harmful hydrogenated vegetable oils are have yet learned that trans fats from hydrogenated vegetable oils build up in your body if you eat them more than a few times a year.

Thanks to Dr Al Sears we now know better!

This deserves to be a headline on the front page of newspapers.

Since it is not, I decided to do this post.