by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
One thing you’ll want to keep in mind about trans fats—they are almost completely unnatural. Trans fat is made by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil (and occasionally animal fat) in a process called hydrogenation. This has the effect of concentrating the fat and the flavor. While minuscule amounts of trans fats-like cells can be found in nature, the stuff you’ll find in snacks is lab created.
Trans fat gained popularity for three reasons: great marketing on the part of Crisco, it’s inexpensive and it has preservative qualities. We shouldn’t feel guilty for sins we didn’t know we committed. Trans fats seemed like a good idea at the time, and were even lauded as a “healthy alternative” to animal fats. Since eating a veggie is better than an artery clogging steak, it seemed reasonable that fat from a plant would be healthier. Most trans fats, as unnatural as they are, come from plants, which means that vegetarians and vegans could still enjoy a rich baked good without feeling that they’ve made an animal suffer. But the chemical process involved in making trans fat concentrates the fat and has more damaging effects than other types of more natural fats.
It wasn’t until the 90s that most organizations started to realize that trans fat was actually worse than saturated fat.
While trans fats have been definitively linked to cardiovascular risks such as heart disease, there’s also more flimsy, less substantiated data that links it to many other medical problems, such as low fertility in women, cancer, liver dysfunction and obesity. High fat diets have always been linked to a whole host of problems, but the use of trans fats seems to kick those problems into higher gear.
The FDA now requires any food that has 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving to be listed on the nutrition facts. I don’t know about you, but to me, zero means nothing. But anything under 0.5 grams per serving can be listed as 0. This means that you still have to look at the ingredient list to really be sure that the product you’re buying is truly trans fat-free.
According to bantransfats.com, “If the label says zero trans fats, don’t believe it. If the words “partially hydrogenated” or “shortening” are in the ingredients list, it DOES contain trans fat… Suppose a product contains 0.4 grams per serving and you eat four servings (which is not uncommon). You have just consumed 1.6 grams of trans fat, despite the fact that the package claims that the product contains zero grams of trans fat per serving. Changing this rule is a high priority for BanTransFats.com. We are working on it.”
While it is difficult to measure very small amounts, Canada actually has set their standard at the much lower 0.2 grams, so it is possible. There’s also been a real push, related to the anti-trans fat movement, for all the nutrition facts in restaurant dishes to be made available on site at each restaurant. Ingredient labeling and nutrition facts seem like a great idea for a restaurant, although very few people actually read them. Requiring this for every item in every eatery would be ridiculous, especially for smaller chains and privately owned restaurants.
It would mean that every time the chef created a new dish, he’d have to send it out to a lab and pay a fee to determine exactly how much vitamin C, saturated fat and calories are in his new creation. If such a law were imposed, you can forget about the daily specials. This seems more reasonable for regular items at a national chain.
So what makes trans fat different than, say, salt or saturated fat? Will they ban salt next? Why should the government have a say in what we eat?
The difference is, trans fat doesn’t really occur in nature. We made the monster, not truly comprehending what it could do to the human body. It’s not as though there aren’t plenty of alternative fats out there—some natural, some unnatural. Lately there’s actually been a return to lard as a fat for baked goods. I find that pretty funny, since Crisco replaced lard as a healthier alternative back in the early 1900s.
You’ll find trans fats in a number of places, whether you’re shopping at the grocery store or picking up fries at the fast-food window. Many prepackaged foods contain trans fat because they have a longer shelf life. Even nutrition bars can contain a surprising amount of trans fat, so make sure you read the nutrition facts and scan the ingredient list for words such as partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or shortening, even if you find the product in a health food store.
Trans fat was very popular at fast food chains, because the stuff could be used longer than conventional oils in deep frying. Some chains have already begun a self-imposed ban in anticipation of legal bans, both nationwide and city-based.
Oreos used to be made with trans fat, but when they were sued by the organization; Ban Trans Fats in 2003, the resulting publicity made them decide to eliminate trans fat from their recipe. In 2006, regular Oreos were trans fat free.
Even Crisco, which was originally ALL trans fat, isn’t anymore. As of January ‘07, all Crisco shortening products have been reformulated to contain less than one gram of trans fat per serving.
Trans fats can still be found in the deep fryers of many restaurants, but these days it’s a dirty little secret. Baked goods used to be the biggest offender and they still are, although Avondale’s Let Them Eat Cake avoids the use of trans fat in favor of milk-based and more natural fats. Bistro Aix is another local restaurant that has publicly sworn off all trans fats.
Right now, the trans fat debate is more about awareness than making the stuff illegal. New York may have banned the stuff but they haven’t moved to fully enforce the ban because of the impact it might have on local businesses. Other cities have banned trans fat, following New York’s lead.
These city-wide bans and the FDA’s press against trans fats have made businesses sit up and take notice, slowly moving toward voluntarily cutting out trans fats, especially in larger corporations.
So the bottom line on the bans is this—by the time a nationwide ban on large amounts of trans fat per serving is actually imposed, most businesses will have already switched over and willingly gone close to trans fat-free.
With all the information out there, more savvy consumers are reading the nutrition facts, glad that the FDA has ensured that large amounts of trans fats are no longer buried in a long and hard to read ingredient label.
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