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In Part One of the Fat Series, we showed you what a fat is and explained the roles that fats play in your body. In Part Two we talked about unsaturated fats and their benefits. Part Three dealt with saturated fats and some of the misinformation surrounding them. Part Four deals with "Trans" fats, or as I like to call them the “Spawn of Satan.”

 

By now I am sure you have heard that Trans fats are bad for you. There has been a media push over the past couple of years to inform the public that trans fats are bad, and it has turned into a big buzz word that everyone seemingly knows; but do you really know what a trans fat is and why it’s bad for you? Here’s a brief lesson on what differentiates them from other fats and just what they do that makes them so bad.

 

As we learned in Part One, lipids are hydrophobic fatty acid chains that serve many important functions in the body. Lipids are hydrophobic, but by no means are they un-reactive. Oils in foods are susceptible to oxidizing due to exposure to heat, light, or any other number of catalysts. In order to make food last longer, the food industry researched ways to make the oils in the food more stable and thus increase their shelf life.

 

The process for stabilizing an oil is nothing special, but it turns a beneficial Cis unsaturated fat into a dangerous Trans unsaturated fat. The process entails heating the oil and hydrogen gas over a nickel or platinum metal base plate, which “hydrogenates” the oils and thereby makes them less reactive/more stable.

Figure 1: Conversion of a Cis to a Trans unsaturated fat.

 

Trans fats were first industrially made by Crisco in 1911 as a way to stabilize and increase the shelf life of both cooking oils and pastry products. The first oils to be treated were actually whale and fish oils, and thus provided a much cheaper alternative to other animal by-products such as lard and butter.

 

Why are trans fats bad? First off, they aren’t essential or necessary for any process in the body. Due to their increased stability, they are used frequently in manufactured foods to increase the shelf-life and add needless calories to many of these processed foods (fats ring in at a whopping nine calories per gram). They also act as a double-edged sword by screwing with your cholesterol levels. They decrease the amount of good (HDL) cholesterol, which cleans/scours your arteries of plaque, and increase the amount of bad (LDL) cholesterol that clogs your arteries with plaque formation. We don’t yet know the mechanism behind why this happens, but countless studies have now shown that it does happen. They have also been shown to have detrimental effects on your cardiovascular system, such as making arteries more rigid, while also raising insulin resistance and possibly contributing to Type 2 Diabetes and countless other degenerative diseases.

 

Researchers from Harvard Medical School have estimated that over 30,000 American deaths per year can be attributed to a complication caused by trans fats. As far back as 2002, the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine has insisted that the only safe level of consumption for trans fats is zero. You would be wise to heed the words of these illustrious organizations and make sure to avoid trans fats at all costs. It isn’t enough to see “0g” on the back of the food label, since the food industry has somehow negotiated with the FDA to allow a label to read “0g” when there are in fact “less than 0.5g” of trans fats per serving in the product. Instead, check the ingredients list and make sure that there are no “hydrogenated oils” of any kind on the list.

 

Like I said before, trans fats are the Spawn of Satan and have no place in a healthy diet. They should be avoided at all costs since there are no benefits and infinite consequences to eating them.

 

Watch out for Part Five of this series, where we’ll discuss those magic Polyunsaturated fats and just whether or not they are worth all the hype!

 

Nuwanee Kirihennedige – Is a nutritionist and dietician that works with athletes and health minded individuals on sports performance and weight loss. Nuwanee currently is the nutritionist for the California Strength Academy in San Ramon California. Nuwanee can be reached at nuwanee@californiastrength.com.