Trans Fats

I remember several years ago when someone I worked with at the Y talked about partially hydrogenated oil and trans fats and how this person didn't consume them, avoided them entirely. I kind of smiled and said "good for you" as I continued eating my then trans fat laden Fritos (Fritos have since become trans fat free). I knew they weren't good for me, but didn't really care or wasn't willing to give up some of my favorite snacks. It wasn't over night, but I eventually started to really pay attention to food labels. I think it happened more once I moved to Carmel...maybe because I wasn't working and had more time on my hands, maybe it was because I was pregnant, or maybe it was even once Andrew was born. I don't really remember. All I know is that now when I go shopping I look for partially hydrogenated oil on the food label and if it has it, I don't buy it (99.9% of the time). It's becoming easier to buy foods that don't contain this ingredient. One reason being: after I've read so many labels I know which foods have it and which foods don't and another reason being: food manufacturers are starting to remove it from their products (makes you wonder why, doesn't it?) When asked about why I don't eat it, all I can come up with is "It's bad." That's enough reason for me most of the time, but I wonder sometimes what it is that makes it bad. It's hard finding good articles on the subject or ones that I understand, but I found this one....(click on the title to read the entire article...I stopped short once I got the gist of it; I also highlighted some of the main details in red.)

What's Wrong with Partially Hydrogenated Oils?
By Eric Armstrong

Why Fats are Important
The first thing to understand about fats is that the essential fatty acids they contain are truly essential. They are the "active ingredient" in every bodily process you can name:
brain cell function and nervous system activity
hormones and intra-cellular messengers
glandular function and immune system operation
hemoglobin oxygen-transport system
cell wall function:
passing oxygen into the cell
passing nutrients into the cell
keeping foreign bodies out of the cell
digestive-tract operation
assimilating nutrients
blocking out allergens

In short, the essential fatty acids (contained mostly in polyunsaturated oils) are the most important nutrients there are -- more important than vitamins, minerals, or even proteins. Because, without them, there is no life. They are the substance and foundation of life energy.

What is Hydrogenation?
Hydrogenation is the process of heating an oil and passing hydrogen bubbles through it. The fatty acids in the oil then acquire some of the hydrogen, which makes it more dense. If you fully hydrogenate, you create a solid (a fat) out of the oil. But if you stop part way, you a semi-solid partially hydrogenated oil that has a consistency like butter, only it's a lot cheaper.

Because of that consistency, and because it is cheap, it is a big favorite as a butter-substitute among "food" producers. It gives their products a richer flavor and texture, but doesn't cost near as much as it would to add butter.

Note:
Until the 1970's, food producers used coconut oil to get that buttery flavor and texture. The American obesity epidemic began when it was replaced with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil -- most often soybean oil. For more information, see Coconut Oil and Palm Kernel Oil: Miracle Medicine and Diet Pill.

What's Wrong with Hydrogenation?
Unlike butter or virgin coconut oil, hydrogenated oils contain high levels of trans fats. A trans fat is an otherwise normal fatty acid that has been "transmogrified", by high-heat processing of a free oil. The fatty acids can be double-linked, cross-linked, bond-shifted, twisted, or messed up in a variety of other ways.

The problem with trans fats is that while the "business end" (the chemically active part) is messed up, the "anchor end" (the part that is attached to the cell wall) is unchanged. So they take up their position in the cell wall, like a guard on the fortress wall. But like a bad guard, they don't do their job! They let foreign invaders pass unchallenged, and they stop supplies at the gates instead of letting them in.

In short, trans fats are poisons, just like arsenic or cyanide. They interfere with the metabolic processes of life by taking the place of a natural substance that performs a critical function. And that is the definition of a poison. Your body has no defense against them, because they never even existed in our two billion years of evolution -- so we've never had the need or the opportunity to evolve a defense against them.

But the worst part is that in the last stages of oil processing (or "refining"), the oil is literally steam distilled to remove its odor. So it doesn't smell. But a hydrogenated oil is much worse than rancid butter. So it it did smell, it would smell worse than the most rancid butter you've ever seen. (And that goes for all refined oils, not just the hydrogenated ones. It's just that hydrogenated oils are everywhere in the American diet.) So the next time you see "partially hydrogenated oil" on a label, think "rancid butter".

Partially Hydrogenated Oils Make You Fat!
Partially hydrogenated oils will not only kill you in the long term by producing diseases like multiple sclerosis and allergies that lead to arthritis, but in the meantime they will make you fat!

You Eat More
It's not like you have any choice in the matter. Remember that the essential fatty acids are vital to every metabolic function in your body. You will get the quantity of essential fatty acids that you need to sustain life, no matter what. You will not stop being hungry until you do.
If you are consuming lots of saturated fats, you really have no choice but to become fat, because saturated fats contain only small quantities of the polyunsaturated fats that contain the essential fatty acids you need. The key to being thin, then, is to consume foods containing large amounts of polyunsaturated oils. (Those foods include fish, olives, nuts, and egg yolks.) Over the long term, those foods remove your sense of hunger.

Note:
The difference between a "fat" and an "oil" is temperature. A "fat" is a lipid that is solid at room temperature. An "oil" is one that is liquid at room temperature. Both are lipids (or "oil/fat"). Change the temperature, and you can convert an oil into a fat, or vice versa.

Partially hydrogenated oils make you gain weight the same way that saturated fats do -- by making you consume even more fat to get the the essential fatty acids you need. But partially hydrogenated fats are even worse. Not only do they produce disease over they long term, but they interfere with the body's ability to ingest and utilize the good fats!

Picture it like this. The trans fats are now the guards along the watchtower. The essential fatty acids (the support troops) are waiting outside to get into the fort (the cell), so they can be distributed along the watchtower (the cell wall). But the guards won't let them in! So they have to find someplace to stay in town. Over time, more and more troops are finding lodging in town. So new houses (fat cells) have to built to keep them in. The town grows more and more swelled with troops (fat), and it gets bigger and bigger (fatter). It's not a pretty picture at all, when you realize that the town is your belly, buns, face, and neck.

Your Metabolism Slows
Worse, most partially hydrogenated oil is partially hydrogenated soybean oil. That's a problem, because soybean oil depresses the thyroid--which lowers your energy levels, makes you feel less like exercising, and generally makes you fatter!

Of course, soybeans have been used for centuries in the Orient--but mostly as the basis for soy sauce and tofu. Asians didn't have soy milk, soy burgers, soy this and soy that. Most of all, they never used concentrated essence of soybean, in the form of soybean oil. And they didn't hydrogenate it, and they didn't use it in everything.

Walking down supermarket aisles in America, you find product after product with partially hydrogenated oil--often in products you would never expect. But why not? After all, it's cheaper than butter. And it's not illegal. Yet. When you eat out, restaurant breads and fried foods are loaded with stuff.

As a result, Americans are consuming soybean oil--partially hydrogenated soybean oil--in virtually everything they eat. It's no wonder that America is experiencing epidemic levels of diabetes, obesitiy, heart disease, and cancer. (.....)