When you think of the "bad fats" - those that can harm your health - you probably think of the saturated variety. They are those who can raise their bad cholesterol levels, or LDL, as well as their risks of developing severe conditions as heart disease.
Well, you should know that saturated fats have some company in this department: trans fats.
Chicagoland Fat Loss Camp - Be A Trans-Fat Detective
Health-wise, fat trans fat with a double whammy. They can also raise your bad cholesterol levels, but they can also lower your HDL, or "good" cholesterol. Together, these two effects are primary risks to develop heart disease, and are a reason why many experts consider fats transmitted a boy larger than saturated fat.
What should you do? To begin with, lower the amounts of saturated fats and trans in your daily diet. You can do so by choosing reduced fat foods such as lower fat dairy and more rined bovine meat cuts. (They contain less total fat, fat less saturated and less trans fats.) Reduced fat crackers and microwave popping maize will contain less fat, less saturated fat and less fat trans. You take the photo.
and may not be a popular notion, but making your own meals - yes, homemade - really help you control the amount of fat you eat. You can choose the type and amount of fat in every recipe you prepare. If you make pie crust, biscuits or waffles, use canola oil instead of shortening and using less cooking fat, in general, whenever possible. There are those intelligent replacements that help a lot.
I continue to mention all these terms like unsaturated, saturated and trans fats. When you think of types of fats, remember that much has to do with the amount of hydrogen in each type of fat molecule.
When the molecules are filled with hydrogen - or are saturated with it, the fat tends to be solid at room temperature. Monoinsaturated fats have a double connection in your carbon chain and polyunsaturated fats have more than one double connection, and both are better for your health than saturated fats and trans fats.
But trans fats make things a little more complicated. They receive their name from their distinct chemical structure. They naturally occur in small amounts in meat and dairy products. But they can be found in higher amounts in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that are mainly used in shortening, some margins and processed foods.
Remember about this hydrogen. When food manufacturers need a more stable and solid way of oil to make their products, they will swing hydrogen gas through vegetable oil. The process actually changes the chemical structure of fat, transforming some of them into trans fats. Oil does not assume all hydrogen to get fully saturated, but it becomes a detrimental fat type.
Trans fats are lurking in all commercially made food products containing partially hydrogenated oils or shortening. They are also hidden in fries used by many fast food joints. (A 1998 Dutch study estimated that, in frying fast food chains, one third is composed of trans fats.)These common foods probably contain trans fats:
- Most margarines and shortens;
- Frying fats in processed foods;
- Fast food fried, such as chips;
- and any food that lists "partially hydrogenated oils" in ingredients such as: biscuits, cake mixtures, snack cakes, snack, chips, donuts, pie crusts, biscuits, breakfast cereals, frozen waffles, Microwave popcorn, packed cookies and other baked and fried items.
How much trans fat does the Americans based daily? Good question. It is almost impossible to respond accurately because manufacturers are not yet required to list amounts of trans fats on food labels. And when a product uses harmful fat, there is no standard amount of how much it is there.
Until the labels give us trans fat information, be sure to check the list of ingredients for the words "partially hydrogenated" or "shortening". If they are in the first three ingredients for a particular food product, and the food product contains a little total fat, chances are a fair amount of trans fats in that food.
Pay special attention to margarines that list the grams of mononsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat along with the total grams of fat and grasses of saturated fat. With this information, you can actually discover the grams of trans fatty acids doing a bit of math:
- Step 1 - Add the grasses of saturated fat, monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat.
- Step 2 - If the step number 1 is less than the total amount of fat on the label, you can assume that the grams that are missing are trans fats.
Trans fats can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in women. In a 2001 study, the researchers found that when women replaced 2% of trans fats that ate with polyunsaturated fat, they fell the risk of diabetes at 40%.
But for women, the risks do not end there. Trans fats can increase the risk of colon cancer as well. Researchers suspect that trans fatty acids are carcinogenic, but need more proof to be sure. They know of a recent study that high levels of trans feed fats doubled the risk of colon cancer in menopausal women not in hormone replacement therapy.
Trans fats were also implicated in the development of breast cancer. A Dutch study suggests an association between the amount of trans fat stored in the body and risks of the disease in women after menopause.
