What is Trans Fat & Trans Fatty Acids ?

Trans fats are not good for health. The trans fats are very harmful to the body, they act as slow poison. Know about the trans fat, trans fatty acids and trans fat foods.

The trans fatty acid or trans fat is defined as follows:

If an unsaturated fatty acid is solidified by a chemical process known as hydrogenation so that its molecules contain trans double bonds between carbon atoms, it becomes a trans fat. In this process, the oil becomes solidified. The hydrogenation increases the shelf life and flavor of the food so the food industry use it.

Trans fats interfere with the body's ability to regulate cholesterol. The trans fats are very harmful to the body, rather they act as slow poison. It is now mandatory to put the amount of trans fats on the food label in many countries like USA and Australia. Other countries like India has no regulation on trans fats so it is being used freely in many food products. The trans fatty acids are so dangerous to the health that the governments should actually ban the use of trans fats in foods.

The Heart Foundation recommends that the intake of saturated fat and trans fat combined should be no more than 8% of total energy intake. People eating foods containing trans fats are at increased risk of coronary heart disease because it raises the "bad" LDL cholesterol and reduces the "good" HDL cholesterol level in the blood.

The different names of trans fat are "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" or "hydrogenated vegetable oil" or "shortening". In India it is known as vanaspati which comes in brand names as "Dalda", "Rath" and "Ghaghan".

Trans fats are found naturally in dairy foods, lamb, beef and mutton. They are also found in many packed foods which use hydrogenated vegetable fats. Other trans fat foods are snacks, viz. cookies, cakes, fried foods, microwave popcorn, margarine, etc.

Always look for the words shortening, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or hydrogenated vegetable oil on the food label, these are nothing but trans fats.

Following is a list of foods containing trans fats.

An American consumes on the average 40 percent trans fat of total trans fats consumed in cakes, cookies, crackers, pies, bread, etc. and 20 pecent of total trans fats consumed in fat.

1. Margarine, Butter, Spreads: Margarine, butter and shortening are loaded with trans fats and saturated fats.
   

   Spread 1 tablespoon	Trans fat (g)	Saturated Fat (g)
   Butter	0.3	7.2
   Tub margarine	0.6	1.2
   Soft Tub margarine	0-0.5	1
   Stick margarine	2.8	2.1
   Shortening	4.2	3.4

   Soft variety of margarine or non-hydrogenated margarine contain no trans fat. Read the label.

   The butter contains very less trans fat than the tub margarine, but if you look at the total of saturated and trans fat, then butter seems to be worse than the margarine.

2. Fast Food: Most foods like fries, pies, chicken dishes, pancakes have trans fats. A medium pack of French Fries contain 14.5 gram of trans fat, while a KFC Original chicken has 7 gram. KFC used to cook everything from chicken to potato wedges in trans fat hydrogenated oils. But it was supposed to replace the trans fat with a healthier soybean oil by April 2007.
   McDonald's New York City Metro restaurants claim that their French fries has 0 grams trans fat per serving and reduced saturated fats.
3. Baked Goods, Cookies, Pastries and Cakes . These foods are loaded with trans fats and saturated fats. Even butter substitutes used in biscuits and cookies and for seasoning are mainly trans-fatty acids.
   Each slice of a pound cake has 4.3 gram of trans fat and 3.4 gram of saturated fat.
4. Soups: Soup cups contain very high levels of trans fat.
5. Microwave Popcorn : 5 - 7 g of trans fat per half bag.

6. Trans Fats in Indian Food

   The Indian Food available in restaurants are loaded with trans-fatty acids and saturated fats. They use vanaspati for cooking bhaturas, parathas, puri (poori) and tikkis.

   Indian Food
   100 g           Trans Fat

   Bhatura           9.5%

   Paratha           7.8%

   Poori               7.6%

   Tikkis               7.5%

   Compare this with 4.2% - 6.1% trans-fatty acids in French fries. This means that the Indian food is worse than the Western foods. No wonder India has the highest number of diabetics.
   It is better to cook these items at home with vegetable oils that do not contain any trans-fatty acids.