Transfats, what’s the big deal?
Transfat is all over the news and web and lawsuits have been filed against companies for putting it in the food. So what is it and how bad is it?
Transfat is made by taking vegetable oil, heating it up and putting hydrogen gas bubbles into it. A metal catalyst ( aluminum, cobalt, nickel) is used to help the fusion. Now that sounds harmless enough. It was first discovered around the turn of the century ( the last one 1900 ) and put to some of its better known uses as Crisco and as margarine. It is also found in small amounts naturally in beef, pork and dairy products.
Early on it was sold as a convenience. It gives the vegetable oil a much longer shelf life, one of the main reasons for its use today. After WWI animal fat was scarce and it was sold as a replacement for animal fat in cooking. Later as heart disease increased and was linked to cholesterol in the 1950s it was sold as a way to reduce saturated fat in the diet. Since the 1980s exercise boom, a trend towards more natural and gourmet food has reduced the use of transfats in most household kitchens.
It is found in most all restaurant, store bought ready made foods, fried foods and baked goods. On the food nutrition labels you’ve seen transfat listed separately since Jan. 1, 2006.
Your diet should consist of 30% fat. In the US 80% of the fat we eat is manufactured, the other 20% comes from the beef, pork and diary products. You need fat in your diet. Your brain is 60% fat and needs Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats to function properly.
So what is the hew and cry about? Transfat is getting the blame for everything from expanding waistlines, cancer, Type II diabetes, to heart disease. It raises your bad cholesterol and it lowers your good cholesterol. Other fats raise and lower both or leave them unaffected. It is thought to mess around with insulin levels, and with a hormone family called eicosaniod. This is not one hormone but a family of about 100. Like cholesterol there are good and bad eicosaniods. The amount of fat and type of fat in your daily diet determine how much of the good and bad eicosaniods get produced. These help adjust insulin, infection levels, how well muscle burns oxygen and whether you burn fat or muscle during your workout. We are still learning about eicosaniods.
Is transfat good for you? Absolutely not. Is it the demon of our diet? Probably not, like a drink here and there, some coffee and a bit of sugar, now and then it does harm but probably no more than many other things you eat provided you don’t eat it to excess. The jury is still out on this.
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