Are Transfatty Acids Making You Fat?

You are cultivating a future where you are destined to be obese, that is, if you continue to consume  trans fatty acids.  Many people born in the last century did not know they were eating so many trans fatty acids because they were not listed on food labels until 2007. It took over five years for the U.S.  Food and Drug administration to require manufacturers to include the trans fat content on the labels of their packaging with only some foods being listed in 2003. Many of us have eaten foods containing this harmful fat almost all of our lives and naturopaths and other health professionals are definitely seeing the fall-out from this in the form of many patients with diabetes, obesity and cancer.

What are Trans Fats?

Trans fats were created in the 1950s as a way of appealing to our natural preference for fatty foods that have what what is called a “good mouth feel.” These are foods that taste creamy and have a pleasing texture.  Although foods with these transfatty acids in them taste good there are few substances on this earth worse for your health and they are especially detrimental to people trying to lose weight. Trans fat can cause belly bloat, diabetes, a rise in cholesterol, a rise in blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. These are all diseases that were not really a statistical cause of death until the middle of the last century and many natural help proponents and dieticians believe this is because these trans fatty acids did not exist in our foods until then.

To give you an idea of just how lethal they are, researchers at Harvard found that getting just three percent of your daily calories from transfats, which is the equivalent of one small order of French Fries can increase your risk of heart disease by fifty percent.

Trans Fats Don’t Exist in Nature

To put it bluntly, trans fats are not good for you because they don’t exist in nature. They are made from oils that heated to very high temperatures and then infused with hydrogen. The hydrogen bonds with the fatty oil to form an entirely new form of fat that stays solid at room temperature.  That is how vegetable oil becomes margarine.

The fatty substances created by this process are added to a great many foods. You usually see them on food labels identified as partially hydrogenated oil. If you went to your cupboards or freezer right now and looked at the labels of foods such as fish sticks, cheese, spreads, popcorn, cookies, stuffing, candy bars, waffles, bran muffins, cereals and non-dairy creamers you are going to find that they are riddled with transfats.  In fact, many foods that are marketed as healthy for you, like wheat thins or blue corn chips actually contain a lot of trans fatty acids.

As these foods containing these fatty acids are not natural your body has a very hard time processing them. Transfat raise the number of fatty particles in your bloodstream and lower the good cholesterol that keeps your arterial walls free of plaque.  They also raise the number of lipoproteins in your bloodstream and therefore increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. .

To avoid consuming them avoid eating margarine, fried food and commercially manufactured baked goods. Make sure that you read food labels and avoid foods containing partially hydrogenated oil at all costs if you want to avoid being exposed to this known nutritional health hazard.

For more information or to book a consultation about our restorative diet and weight loss programs  visit the Pinewood Natural Health Clinic website that has a list of full services and products at www.pinewood.ca or call our Toronto Office at  (416)-656- 8100.  We also have an office in Pickering, Ontario at (905)-427-0057. You can also email us at info@pinewoodhealth.ca and we would be happy to answer any question that you have about our holistic health services.