Trans Fats Still A Problem...But You Can Do Something About It!

You remember Trans Fats, right?

If not, scroll down for a quick recap!

Denmark and Switzerland have trans fat regulations, as do some American states, including California and New York. While Canada was the first country to make trans fat-labeling mandatory, we haven't been as progressive (except BC, that implemented trans fat regulations in Sept 2009).
The extent of the government's action plan was to ask food companies to voluntarily reduce trans fats from their products in 2 years. That was in 2007.

It's 2010.. so where are we with the voluntarily reductions?

According to the Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation... not very far.
While some food companies have taken steps to remove trans fats, many still haven't, and there's still too much trans fats in out food... especially baked products.

What You Can Do:

Clearly, voluntary reductions are getting us nowhere. According to the Heart & Stroke Foundation, Canada urgently needs Federal trans fat regulations "to protect our children and all Canadians".

To this end, they've prepared a simple letter that you can forward to the Federal Health Minister, your local MP, and the Prime Minister.

It's so simple. If you're Canadian, you just have to fill in your contact info and click "send".

Click Here to see, and send, the letter. (Thanks to my friend, Lindsay, for bringing this to my attention!).

Click Here for the Top 10 reasons why the Federal Government should implement Trans Fat regulations.

Trans Fats... A Recap

What's a trans fat?
It's the product of taking a healthy liquid oil and pumping it with hydrogen (hydrogenation). This makes this oil spreadable.

Why are they bad?
They not only increase your "lousy" LDL cholesterol but also lower your "healthy" HDL cholesterol. They also increase triglycerides (fat in your blood) and increase the formation of blockages in your heart blood vessels.

How much should you have?
The average Canadian is eating 10 grams trans fats a day! According to Health Canada, we should limit our intake to less than 2 grams a day. According to me, you should aim for closer to 0 grams!!

How do you know you're eating trans fats?
Read the labels! All labels have trans fats on the nutrition information table. Look for products with 0g
BUT
Be aware that, in Canada, companies only have to label a product as having trans fats if the serving contains more than 0.2 grams. (In the States, only if there's more than 0.5 grams trans fats/serving!).
So you must read through the ingredient list. If you see the following ingredients, the product contains trans fats:
hydrogenated oil, partially hydrogenated oil, shortening.

Click HERE for more information.

Coconut oil: Good fat or bad fat?

Saturated fat is a bad fat- it increases your "lousy" LDL cholesterol that transports cholesterol to the arteries, causing plaque to form on your artery walls, increasing your risk of a heart attack or stroke.

In general, foods from animals sources contain mostly saturated fat (ie. meat, milk, cheese, butter, lard) whereas foods from plant sources contain mostly unsaturated fats (olive oil, canola oil, nuts, avocadoes).

There is one main exception though: tropical oils. These so-called tropical oils, like palm oil and coconut oil, are mostly saturated. In fact, coconut oil is 92% saturated! As such, it has generally been recommended to limit intake of coconut oil, along with animal fats, to reduce your risk of heart disease.

That said, recent studies have indicated that coconut oil may not be as bad as we had thought.

In a 1995 study, 28 people with high cholesterol followed a diet providing 36% of total calories from fat, 50% of which came from either butter, coconut oil or safflower oil (only about 10% saturated). After 6 weeks, total cholesterol and the "lousy" LDL cholesterol were significantly higher in those on the butter diet compared to the coconut oil diet. The safflower oil diet was associated with significantly lower total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels compared to the butter and coconut oil groups. The same researchers confirmed the above results on healthy subjects as well.

Although coconut oil is more saturated, the saturated fat in butter comes from palmitic acid whereas the one in coconut oil comes from lauric acid. Palmitic acid (also the main fat in palm oil) has been found to have a greater negative effect on cholesterol and is therefore more conducive to heart disease than lauric acid.

So... what does this mean?

It means that non-hydrogenated coconut oil can be an alternative to butter or hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated vegetable oils that are high in trans fats, but it shouldn't replace other more healthful, mainly unsaturted, oils such as olive, canola, soybean, corn, safflower or sunflower oils.

Diet Myth #1: Fat makes you fat

It's almost summer, time to get bikini-ready, and the perfect time to debunk some of those diet myths!

Nope. Dietary fat does not make you fat.

- Randomized weight loss studies show little net weight change after a year of following a low fat diet- although people on the low fat diets generally lost 2-4 lbs after a few weeks, they also tended to regain that weight while continuing with the diet.

- In European country-to-country surveys , women eating the least amount of fat were the most likely to be obese while those with the higher fat intake were least likely to be so. (For European men, there was no relation between fat intake and obesity).

- In the United States, the gradual reduction of the fat content of the average diet from 40% of total calories to about 33% has been accompanied by a gradual increase in the average weight and a dramatic increase in obesity rates.

Bottom line:

The fat in your diet doesn't make you fat. You gain weight when you eat more calories (whether coming from carbs, protein or fat) than you burn off.
The goal is to cut back on bad fats (saturated and trans fats) and increase good fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats).

If you're already on a low fat diet, think about replacing some of those carbs with unsaturated fats.

An added benefit of replacing saturated fats and carbs in your diet with unsaturated fats is that your risk of coronary heart disease and stroke will decrease by :

- Lowering your "lousy" LDL cholesterol, - Preventing the increase of your triglycerides (fat in your blood),
- Reducing development of erratic heartbeats, the main cause of sudden cardiac death,
- Reducing the tendency for arterial blood clots to form.

Greasy

Photographer Nicole Hill Gerulat: website & blog

Does frying an oil make it a trans fat?

No. Not really.

However, cooking at high temperatures can damage an oil. The more omega 3 fatty acids in the oil, the less suitable it is for cooking (ie. flaxseed oil). The oils that are higher in saturated fats (which you want to avoid) or monounsaturated fats, including canola olive, peanut oil, are the most stable when heated.

Research was done at the University of Lethbridge to study how well canola oil withstood various cooking methods. It's important to note that the study was funded by the canola council.

The researchers found that baking did not alter the monounsaturated fats of the canola oil nor did it produce trans fats. They then stir fried at 195°C and at the oil's smoking point of 250°C, for 5 minutes each time. At both stir-frying temperatures, there was no significant development of trans fatty acids but heating canola oil to its smoke point reduced the amount of polyunsaturated fats (omega 3 and 6) due to oxidative degradation.

It is not recommended to heat oil above its smoke point, which is the temperature at which the oil begins to break down and forms free radicals that can be harmful to your health, ie. is a carcinogen. See the link below for the smoke points of different oils.

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/50/Smoke-Points-of-Various-Fats

The researchers then replicating commercial deep-frying methods. During deep-frying in commercial operations, oils are used for much longer periods of time than stir-frying and baking. A standard frying temperature of 185°C and an extreme temperature of 225° C were tested. The researchers discovered that at the standard temperature of 185 degrees, there was negligible development of trans fatty acids and only slight loss of omega 3 fatty acid even after the oil reached the point at which it would be discarded due to loss of quality. At the extreme temperature, after 8 hours a day for 7 days, trans fatty acid levels increased slightly and the oil was significantly degraded.

Signs that an oil is degraded include: excessive darkening, foaming, and thickness, smoking, "Off" flavour and odour in fried food, greasiness/loss of crispness in fried food.

Sources:

http://www.canola-council.org/canola_oil_properties_and_uses.aspx http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3049380 http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3046430#trans_with_cooking

Trans vs. Saturated Fats

Trans fats act like saturated fat by increasing "lousy" LDL cholesterol but it also decreases the "healthy" HDL cholesterol.
So, we know that trans fats are worse than saturated fats, but how much worse?
Two times.
Trans fats increase the total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol ratio (a higher cholesterol to HDL ratio is bad) nearly two times more than saturated fats.
Avoid them!

Source: Ascherio, A, Willett, WC. Health effects of trans fatty acids. Am J Clin Nutr. 66 (4 suppl). Oct 1997.

Ban the trans

As of July 2007, eating establishments in New York were prohibited from using cooking oils that contained trans fats. They have until July 2008 to eliminate artificial trans fats from all their foods. Denmark has also passed legislation requiring limits to the levels of trans fats in food.

In Canada, we're not so lucky. The extent of the government's action plan is to ask food companies to voluntarily reduce trans fats from their products by 2009. However, different cities, like Toronto and Calgary, are taking matters into their own hands. On the plus side, we were the first country to make labelling of trans fats mandatory.
So, what's a trans fat?
It's the product of taking a healthy liquid oil and pumping it with hydrogen (hydrogenation)- a process that hardens the oil, making it spreadable. They're used by the food industry cause they're cheap and stable so they increase the product's shelf life.

Why are they bad?
They not only increase your "lousy" LDL cholesterol but also lower your "healthy" HDL cholesterol. They also increase triglycerides (fat in your blood) and appear to increase inflammation that is thought to play a key role in the formation of blockages in heart blood vessels.
1 gram of trans fats is said to be 10 times worst than 1 gram saturated fat.

How much should you have?
The average Canadian is eating 10 grams trans fats a day! According to Health Canada, we should limit our intake to less than 2 grams a day. According to me, you should aim for 0 grams!!

What foods contain trans fats?
Trans fats are in most processed foods- spreads like shortening and margarines, packaged foods like pancake mixes, baked goods like muffins and doughnuts, instant soups and noodles, fast food and fried chicken, frozen foods like pies, pizzas, breaded fish and waffles, crackers, toppings and dips like whipping toppings, gravy mixes, salad dressings and non-dairy creamers.

Not all trans fat comes from hydrogenated vegetable oil. Meat and milk have small amounts of naturally occurring trans. But “small” becomes substantial (seven grams) when you’re ordering a 16-ounce prime rib.
See below for trans fat contents of some common foods.

How do you know you're eating trans fats?
Read the labels! All labels should have trans fats on the nutrition information table. Look for products with 0g
BUT
be aware that, in Canada, companies only have to label a product as having trans fats if the serving contains more than 0.2 grams. (In the States, only if there's 0.5 grams trans fats/serving!).
So you must read through the ingredient list. If you see the following ingredients, the product contains trans fats:
hydrogenated oil, partially hydrogenated oil, shortening.

For example, low fat peanut butter (Kraft) lists 0 grams trans fat/serving on the nutrition facts table but by reading the ingredient list you'll see 'hydrogenated oil'. So the product does in fact contain trans fats.

Lastly, remember, trans-fat free does not necessarily mean healthy, calorie-free or even saturated fat- free!!

The trans fats in some popular food products

Typical order of fried seafood combo pack: 10grams
Burger King Medium French Fries: 6.5 grams
Doughnut: 5 grams
Shortening (1 Tbsp): 4.2 grams
Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll: 4 grams
Small bag potato chips: 3.2 grams
Nabisco Chips Ahoy! Chocolate Chip Cookies (3 cookies): 1.5 grams
Kellogg's Cracklin' Oat Bran Cereal (3/4cup) : 1.5 grams
General Mills Cinnamon Toast Crunch (3/4 cup): 0.5 grams
Quaker Chewy Granola Bars Chocolate Chip (1 bar): 0.5 grams
Butter (1 Tbsp): 0.3 grams

Sources: http://www.cspinet.org/nah/6_99/transfat3.html ; http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/fats/transfats.html ;
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/nr-cp/2004/2004_trans_e.html