Trans Fats - My Mortal Enemy

When I started to live a healthier lifestyle, one of the first things I removed from my diet was trans fats. Trans fats (unlike other dietary fats) are not essential to a healthy diet and consuming them will actually increase your risk of coronary heart disease. They do this by raising LDL levels (bad cholesterol), while also lowering HDL levels (good cholesterol).

Worldwide, health authorities recommend that people limit their consumption of trans fats to trace amounts. But the methods in which companies are allowed to label their products in this country may have you eating more trans fats than you ever bargained for. This is because the FDA says that if one serving of a product has less than 0.5g of trans fats, the company can round it down on the nutrition label to 0g. This is why you might often see strange serving sizes on products (for example, Pam cooking spray is not fat free, but their obscure "x seconds of spray" has just a trace amount of fat so they can say it is fat free).

This is why it is extremely important that you read the ingredients labels. Things like fat free cool whip, certain cereals, some Fiber One bars, most margarines, certain flavors of Quaker "Quakes" snacks, even breads, etc *do* contain trans fats. And that less than 0.5g can certainly add up if you eat several servings. When reading the ingredients list, make sure that the item you are buying does not contain the ingredient Partially Hydrogenated Oils. These are, in fact, trans fats.

Become a smart consumer! And don't forget to write to the company and ask them why they are still putting this poison into their products!