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TOPIC:
"One Death Every 15 Minutes!"
Did you know that there’s one death every 15-minutes caused by eating foods containing
trans fats?
What are trans fats? This is a relatively new term that hasn’t been part of our vocabulary for very long, so first let’s get straight about what trans fats really are.
Trans fats are a result of a process called “hydrogenation” whereby vegetable oil is placed under pressure with hydrogen gas at 250-450-degrees F for several hours in the presence of a catalyst such as nickel or platinum.
From a big business point of view, the purpose behind hydrogenating an oil is so that it can be made to look like real foods, like butter,
improve its texture and lengthen its shelf life.
The problem with this industrial hydrogenation process is that randomly adding hydrogen atoms not only ruins the nutritional value of vegetable oils, but it converts what was once a natural food component into many unnatural and fractured compounds, some of which were never before been seen by man until this whole process began.
One of the several dozen altered compounds created by hydrogenation are trans fatty acids (trans fats).
This hydrogenation process is just as dangerous to our health as genetically modifying our food source. The hydrogenation process is creating “funny food” or “franken fat” that’s far different from what nature intended us to eat resulting in a decrease in our health that’s far from funny.
According to Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and one of the world’s top authorities on nutrition, at least 30,000 premature heart disease deaths are caused each year by trans fat from partially hydrogenated oils in our food source.
According to Dr. Willett, partial hydrogenation of oils is the
“biggest food-processing disaster in U.S. history.”
He states that if the hydrogenation process were discovered today, it could not be adopted by the oil food industry.
So why is it so prevalent in our food sources? Good question. Perhaps Dr. Willett can answer that one for you in another quote:
“In Europe (food companies) hired chemists and took trans fats out. In the United States, they hired lawyers and public relations people. No one doubted trans fats have adverse affects on health, and still companies were not taking it out.”
The fact is trans fats are in so many of our food products that unless you take the time to read and check the labels on everything you buy, chances are you’re eating plenty of trans fats every day.
Right now it’s difficult to tell exactly what the TFA (trans fatty acid) content is for a loaf of bread or a box of crackers because trans fats are not listed on the nutrition facts panel.
How much is too much? Bruce Holeb, Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Canada’s University of Guelph told the Toronto Globe and Mail that
eating just 1-gram of trans fat every day over several years is enough to significantly boost your risk of heart disease, and the Professor points out that as few as two crackers can contain an entire gram of TFA!
And it gets worse...in a review article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, nutritionists at the Harvard School of Public Health wrote that trans fats
slow down the natural conversion processes of the good fatty acids in your body that are critical to
your good health.
In a study of over 800 seniors conducted at Rush University Medical
Center in Chicago, those who had a high trans fat intake were found to be twice as likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease, compared to those with the lowest intake.
Further studies have also shown that not only do trans-fats increase your risk of heart disease, but may also be linked to a greater risk of Type II Diabetes.
What Can You Do To Avoid Trans Fats?
First of all, if you’re going to avoid eating them, you need to
become familiar with all the foods
that might contain them.
Astonishing amounts of trans fats are found everywhere, especially in packaged goods such as cookies, crackers, microwave popcorn, potato chips and fast food snacks.
Trans fats will be in commercially fried foods such as French Fries and onion rings as well as in vegetable shortening and some margarines. A good rule of thumb is that if the food comes out of a package or bag, from a commercial bakery, is quick, easy and convenient, or designed to be re-heated in a microwave oven, there’s a very high chance that it contains trans fats.
Next, read the Nutrition Facts panel on all food. Even though food manufacturers are not required to list trans-fats on their labels, you can figure it out for yourself.
Look for grams of "Total Fat" on the label. Below that, the fats will be broken down into saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. When the "Total Fat" number is higher than the other three combined, the difference between the two totals equals the grams-per-serving of trans fat.
Some products aren't required to list monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, either. In that case, when the grams of "Total Fat" are higher than the grams of "Saturated Fat," go back to the list of ingredients.
If "hydrogenated" appears high on the list of ingredients, you're definitely getting some trans fat. If "hydrogenated" appears lower on the list, the trans fat content is probably low.
Example: in microwave popcorn the total fat is 5 grams, saturated fat is one gram, and no other fats are listed. So with 4 fat grams unaccounted for, we check the ingredients and find only three items, in this order: popcorn, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and salt. That's a pretty good indication that you're getting at least a gram or two of trans fat, and maybe even as much as
four.
Because trans fat is present in so many food products, it's easy to see how you could pick up a dozen or more grams every day without even trying and if just 1-gram per day is dangerous, you really are killing yourself with trans fats.
Remember that little nursery rhyme we used to sing: "Sticks
and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt
me?".... not so anymore.
Words CAN Kill You
Hydrogenated Oils
Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils
Partially Hydrogenated Oils
Margarine
Vegetable Shortening
When you love yourself and
your family, absolutely avoid
eating foods that contain any of the above words in the list of ingredients.
This means that you’ll be reading a lot of labels and discarding
most of the foods that may have been a staple on your old shopping list.
Don’t despair when you find that your grocery cart contains very few of the things you used to eat, because there are still healthy alternatives out there and you owe it to yourself and your family to find them and the sooner, the better!
Eating less fat in general is a good idea, but eliminating trans fatty acid from your diet is one of the best things you can do for your health and will go a very long way to ensuring that you and your family don’t become one of those 30,000 yearly deaths caused by eating foods containing trans fats.
I’m sure you’ll agree with a National Academy of Sciences panel who
not only confirmed the high risk of heart disease associated with eating
trans-fats, but recommended:
“The only safe intake of trans-fat is zero.”
I hope you've enjoyed this simple health
"secret", compliments of SolvingTheHealthPuzzle.com
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