Trans Fat: What the Food Industry Wants to Hide From You
by Vin Miller
It’s fairly common knowledge that trans fat is unhealthy, but many people still don’t realize how unhealthy it actually is. Trans fat is still quite common, and as such, it’s important that you’re aware of the dangers that it presents and that you’re able to identify it on an ingredients list.
Unfortunately, the food industry has a lot of incentive to continue using trans fat. Because of the myth that saturated fat causes heart disease, trans fat provides a convenient way for food manufacturers to give their products the consistency of solid fat without having to list saturated fat on the nutrition label. Margarine is an excellent example. Furthermore, trans fat is less expensive, has a longer shelf life, is easier to bake with, and has a reduced need for refrigeration. As such, trans fat provides a lot of potential for reducing production costs and increasing profits. However, the one factor that’s not fully taken into account, which is also the most important factor, is your health.
What is Trans Fat?
The name given to trans fatty acids technically describes their molecular structure, and although trans fat does occur naturally, the term is generally used to represent the unnatural fat molecules that result from the food processing techniques used to give polyunsaturated oils the solid characteristics of saturated fat.
Trans fat is produced by a process called hydrogenation which is used to create products like margarine, shortening, and the oils that many types of fast food are fried in. During this process, polyunsaturated oils are mixed with metal particles, usually nickel oxide, and are subjected to hydrogen gas at high pressure and temperature. Emulsifiers and starch are added to the mixture to improve the consistency, and because the resulting product has an unpleasant smell, it is again introduced to high temperatures to be steam cleaned. In the case of products like margarine, the mixture is also bleached to remove the unnatural gray color, and artificial flavoring and coloring is used to make it more appealing.
In addition to the potentially dangerous additives that are typically used in association with the hydrogenation process, the resulting trans fatty acids are structurally different from all naturally occurring fats and are now commonly regarded as a serious health concern.
Trans Fat Originates from Unhealthy Oils
One of the significant concerns regarding trans fat has more to do with the oils that are hydrogenated than the trans fat itself. Most processed food manufacturers use the cheapest polyunsaturated oils available including soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, and canola oil. Because of the unstable nature of polyunsaturated fat, these oils are likely to be rancid before the hydrogenation process even begins.
When exposed to heat, oxygen, and moisture, as is common in cooking or processing, polyunsaturated oils tend to produce free radicals which are ionized molecules that are highly reactive and can easily cause cellular damage. This damage can alter DNA function and promote cell mutation and cancer growth as well as a number of other diseases and conditions.
Free radical damage is most notably known for damaging artery walls and causing the build up of plaque and scar tissue that leads to atherosclerosis and heart disease. Ironically, the polyunsaturated oils that we’ve been told to use as a heart healthy alternative to saturated fat are actually much more likely to cause heart disease.
Why Trans Fat is Unhealthy
Despite the body’s amazing ability to recognize and eliminate toxins, it unfortunately doesn’t recognize trans fat as an unnatural substance and will use it for the repair and development of cell membranes. This is of critical importance because cell membranes have a significant influence on the health and function of the cell, and in turn, our overall health. Once incorporated into cell membranes, the altered structure of trans fat leads to cell malfunction, and in a large enough volume, can lead to disease. Trans fat can also block the important utilization of essential fatty acids and is associated with many conditions and diseases including cancer, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, liver dysfunction, obesity, diabetes, immune dysfunction, birth defects, impaired vision, sterility, and weak bones and tendons.
Hidden Sources of Trans Fat and How to Avoid It
Over the past decade, it has become more widely accepted that trans fat is unhealthy, and as a result, its presence is gradually diminishing. However, many foods still contain trans fat, and if you’d like to avoid the risks that it presents, you should know how to recognize it.
Fortunately, the FDA’s food labeling regulations have been updated to require that trans fat be listed on nutrition labels. However, a small loop hole exists in section 101.9 which states that “if the serving contains less than 0.5 grams [of trans fat], the content, when declared, shall be expressed as zero.” In combination with small serving sizes that are often unrealistic, manufacturers take advantage of this by making bold claims on the packaging of their products stating that they contain 0 grams of trans fat. Don’t mistake this to mean that the product contains no trans fat at all because this is rarely the case.
Any product that lists a “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” oil as an ingredient contains trans fat, even if the labeling says 0 grams. In such a case, it’s in your best interest to assume the worst case scenario which would be that the product contains 0.49 grams of trans fat, and it’s also important to realize that this amount is per serving. This might sound trivial, and some food labels even state something about a “dietary insignificant amount of trans fat”, but if you eat processed food on a regular basis, the amount of trans fat that you consume can accumulate to a potentially dangerous level. Furthermore, most reputable nutrition experts agree that you shouldn’t have any trans fat at all. In fact, in Nourishing Traditions, which is an excellent cookbook and nutritional reference, Sally Fallon suggests that you avoid it like the plague! The choice is yours, but at least be aware of what you’re choosing.
Know Your Fats
Much of the information presented in this article is from Know Your Fats by Mary Enig PhD. This book is an excellent resource that dispels much of the popular misinformation about the health impact of various fats, particularly saturated fat.
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I recommend the book Eat Fat Lose Fat – The Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats, by Dr. Mary Enig & Sally Fallon
I just got it from the library, I love the people at Weston A. Price Foundation and their mission to challenge ‘politically correct’ nutrition. Speaking of, I also recommend the book Nourishing Traditions by the same authors, it’s a wonderful cookbook that will have a permanent spot on my shelf forever.
Thanks for the recommendation, Andrea! I’m sure Eat Fat, Lose Fat is a great book. It’s one of the many sitting on my bookshelf still waiting to be read!
Thanks for the article , Vin. I keep sending articles like these about fat to Whole Foods Markets, but they still insist on selling Canola Oil and putting it in their prepared foods.
It’s so frustrating! The good news is that when I go to lunch at their hot food bar and salad bar, they list the ingredients, so I can make the proper choice. The response Iget from Whole Foods is that there is nothing valid about Canola being bad. When I talked to the employees at WF, they said they don’t use GMO canola oil, and one woman told me that she can’t worry about every little thing and get caught up in scares.
I wonder how many restaurants are not letting you know what’s in the food so you are eating bad oils blindly.
A recent newsletter that I got from Dr. Weil featured a recipe for Olive Oil Cake. I don’t heat olive oil, but it’s baked into this cake. The recipe included all purpose flour and evaporated cane sugar. It was shocking that he would post it, but I guess he must be eating something junky to get the belly that he has. (Sorry, not trying to be too mean, but would you take nutritional advice from someone built like Dr. Weil?)
Whole Foods does sell pastries, cookies, ice cream, etc. and yes, there is sugar and canola in them, but I doubt they will ever replace any of that with Stevia or Xylitol or coconut oil..too pricey..cuts into profit.
Hi Sharona, thanks for your comment!
Unfortunately, organic and natural doesn’t always equate to healthy which is something that people need to be more conscious of even when they shop in health food stores such as Whole Foods. As Andrea mentions below, they’ll continue to stock whatever sells. As unfortunate as this is, I don’t think the stores deserve total blame. As I always say, people need to do more of what you’re doing by educating themselves and taking responsibility for their choices.
I completely agree that it’s important for anyone giving advice, especially related to health, to be living proof of their recommendations whenever applicable.
Whole Foods isn’t exactly the most honest, and “wholesome” place they’d like people to think they are. They are a BIG BUSINESS, and we all know that to be a successful corporation these days, you have to look out for profits above anything else. They will continue you sell the products if people will buy them. Also, did you hear about what their beloved CEO did?? He used an alias on a yahoo finance webforum for 7 years! Often badmouthing competitors like Wild Oats which WF late acquired. SKETCHY!
Thanks for sharing that article, Andrea! Although Whole Foods is a great asset (I wish there was one near me), they’re still a large corporation that is primarily focused on profit. If I remember correctly, they were even selling rBGH milk for a while.
I think a lot of people just have no clue what trans fat is, and don’t bother to read ingredients on all of the processed things they buy. They just believe the large claims of “no trans fat” on the front of labels. And unfortunately, you are right, they can end up consuming dangerous levels of it without even realizing it.
You have done a great job explaining it so they can easily understand, Well Done!
Thanks, meatlessmama!
This is exactly why I wrote the article. Most people know that trans fat is “bad”, but don’t know why and don’t know what foods contain it. Hopefully it will help a few people make better choices.
Can you comment on some of the margarine alternatives such as Smart Balance which supposedly do not contain trans fat? My husband insists that Smart Balance is better for you than butter. They make all these different varieties, including one that adds flax. I won’t use these products, but I wish I could convince him otherwise.
Hi Peg,
Fortunately, the ingredients of Smart Balance products are available on their website. I looked at the 67% and 37% original spreads and neither of them contain trans fat, but they both contain soybean and canola oil which I think are undesirable based on the reasons mentioned in the article. Soy also has additional issues of its own that can lead to hormonal imbalance and poor digestion among other things.
Does your husband still believe that saturated fat causes heart disease? If so, there’s plenty of information refuting this belief and the Fat Head documentary is an excellent place to start learning about it. Tom Naughton, the creator of this documentary, is also the author of the article about margarine that Arlo linked to below.
Perhaps your husband may also have been persuaded by the flax content. Although flax is a good source of ALA omega-3 fatty acids, it doesn’t contain the more important DHA and EPA forms of omega-3. Although the body can convert ALA into DHA and EPA, some people don’t make this conversion well. Uncontaminated seafood is the best source of DHA and EPA.
As Arlo stated, the bottom line is that butter is natural and butter spreads like Smart Balance aren’t. In cases like this, we are forced to make the choice of trusting nature or science. In my opinion, it is a common sense approach to favor nature, especially with the amount of politics and monetary incentives that is corrupting modern science.
In my opinion, the most effective way to convince your husband is to let him see the health benefits that you experience from making healthy choices.
I hope that helps!
I’d be more worried about “interesterified fats”, of which the label in the ingredients list is optional. Of course, the easiest way to avoid IE fats is to simply eat as much real, minimally processed and traditional food as possible.
Hi Arlo, thanks for your comment!
Any type of fat that’s processed should be a concern! You raise a great point since trans fats are being used less and most people don’t know about interesterified fats. Eating traditional foods is indeed a great way to avoid unnatural fats as well as many of the other altered nutrients and unnatural chemicals that modern science has introduced to our food.
@Peg I don’t know how you’d convince your husband, other than asking him to simply look at the ingredients list. Butter: cream. Margarine: well, too many to list here.
He could also read this.
The FDA requirement about labels is a positive, but I don’t think it applies to the naturally occurring trans fats like palm oil.
Some manufacturers are swapping palm oil for trans fats for that very reason. You can see it happening in things like “natural, no-stir” peanut butter.
Hi Greg, thanks for your comment!
As far as I know, palm oil doesn’t contain any trans fat and the reason why some people consider it to be unhealthy is because of it’s saturated fat content. However, as I mentioned in this article and in the articles I wrote about the cholesterol myths and the Fat Head documentary, saturated fat does not cause heart disease and is an essential part of good health. It’s a critical part of the brain, the nervous system, and cell membranes and is a naturally occurring oil that has been used by primitive cultures for as long as 5,000 years.
Both Mary Enig and Sally Fallon, who are both authors and representatives of the Weston A. Price Foundation, both state that palm oil is a health oil, just like coconut oil.
You’re right. Palm oil is a naturally occurring saturated fat, like coconut. I was thinking about its use in the no-stir natural peanut butter products to impart thickening and eliminate the separation that is so common with those products.
Excellent article!
Thanks, Greg! Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Yes, the food industry will always find an alternative any time the FDA steps in. Although palm oil obviously isn’t naturally found in peanut butter, it does at least seem like a safer alternative than trans fat depending on the processing techniques used to incorporate it. Unfortunately, I had trouble finding information on how the palm oil is actually added.
I rarely eat peanut butter, but if I ate it more, I’d certainly be more than happy to deal with the naturally occurring “inconvenience” of the oil separating!
I rarely eat it too, but I like the oil separating ones!
My basic organic chemistry knowledge has helped me understand what is wrong with a type of fat.
This informative article has refreshed my mind about trans fats.
I never ate a peanut butter with hydrogenated oil since 2004.
I like saturated fats that I drink virgin coconut oil (3 tsp a day) and eat butter (<1 tsp).
Hi ægil, thanks for your comments!
It’s great to see that you’re avoiding hydrogenated oils and are eating healthy sources of fat like coconut oil and butter. Hopefully that butter is from a pasture raised cow!
So can you recommend some good healthy cooking oils other than coconut and olive. I’d like to know if there’s an oil with a high heat point that I could use for occasionally frying foods. Thanks.
I think coconut oil is one of the best oils to cook with and it’s what I use myself. Since you specifically want to avoid it for some reason, I think palm oil would be a good alternative. You could also use butter or ghee from pasture raised cattle. What’s important is to use a fat that’s stable at high temperatures, and this means saturated fat. In line with this, and for the preservation of the nutrients in the food being cooked, it’s also preferable to cook at lower temperatures.