Today I’m going to talk about something that most of you have probably never heard … that there is a distinction between good trans fats and bad trans fats. There is some evidence that good trans fats can help you with fat loss, muscle building, and even cancer prevention, while bad trans fats have been shown to cause heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and your general whining. body.
I’m sure most of you have heard all the hype in the news over the past few years about how bad artificial trans fats are for your health. If you’ve been a reader of my newsletter and my “The Truth About Six Pack Abs” e-book program, then you definitely know my opinion that these substances are some of the most evil food additives of all and are found in the vast majority. of all the processed foods and fast foods on the market today. In my opinion, artificial trans fats measure up to smoking in terms of their degree of health hazard. After all, they are one of THE MAIN factors in the explosion of heart disease since the 1950s or so.
As you’ve probably heard recently, the FDA has mandated that food manufacturers list trans fat grams on all nutrition labels beginning earlier this year. This means that as inventory is being replaced in grocery stores, you should start to see grams of trans in all packages starting now, giving you an easier way to avoid them.
With all the talk about trans fats on the news these days, I wanted to clear up a few things, particularly regarding bad trans fats vs. good trans fats. If you’ve never heard of good trans fats before, let me explain a bit.
Bad trans fats
First, the bad trans fats I’m talking about are man-made. These are represented by any artificially hydrogenated oil. The main culprits are margarine, shortening, and partially hydrogenated oils found in most processed foods, junk food, and fried foods. These hydrogenated oils are highly processed using aggressive chemical solvents such as hexane (a component of gasoline), at high temperature, pressure, a metallic catalyst is added to them and then they are deodorized and bleached. A small% of the solvent is allowed to remain in the finished oil. Now it has become more of an industrial oil than a food oil, but somehow the FDA still allows food manufacturers to put this junk in our food in large quantities, even with the well-documented health hazards.
These hydrogenated oils cause inflammation within your body, indicating the deposition of cholesterol as a healing agent on the walls of your arteries. Therefore, hydrogenated oil = inflammation = clogged arteries. You can see why heart disease has skyrocketed since this junk was loaded into our food supply for the past 5 to 6 decades. As time goes on and science continues to reveal just how deadly these oils are, I feel like they will eventually become illegal and their use will be banned. The labeling laws were just the first step. In fact, some countries around the world have already banned the use of hydrogenated oils in food manufacturing or at least have set dates to permanently eliminate them.
Keep in mind, however, that as companies are beginning to phase out the use of hydrogenated oils in processed foods, they are replacing them, in most cases, with highly refined polyunsaturated oils. These are still heavily processed oils that use high temperatures, solvents, deodorants, and bleaching agents. Even refined oils are known to cause inflammation in your body … a far cry from natural sources of healthy fats. Again, for the best results, your best bet is to avoid highly processed foods altogether and to choose whole, natural, and minimally processed foods. Your body will thank you!
Good trans fats
Well, after trash talk about man-made trans fats, let me clearly state that healthy natural trans fats DO EXIST. Natural trans fats are created in the stomach of ruminant animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, etc. and make their way to the fat deposits of the animals. Therefore, the fat in the milk and the fat in the meat of these animals can provide natural and healthy trans fats. The natural trans fats in your diet have been thought to have some potential benefit in assisting in both muscle building and fat loss efforts. However, keep in mind that the amount of healthy trans fats in the meat and dairy products of ruminant animals is greatly reduced by mass production methods and their high-grain and soy-rich diets. Grass-fed, free-range meat and dairy always have much higher amounts of these beneficial fats.
One of those natural trans fats you may have heard of is called Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) and it has been marketed by many weight-loss companies. Keep in mind that these artificial CLA pills that you see in stores may not be the best way to get CLA in your diet. They are artificially made from vegetable oils, rather than the natural process that occurs in ruminant animals. Again, man-made doesn’t compare to the benefits of natural sources.
Now that all of your labels must include grams of trans fat, keep in mind that if a quantity of trans fat appears in a meat or dairy product, it is most likely the good natural trans fats that we have discussed here. Otherwise, if the amount of trans appears in some processed food, it is most likely the dangerous and unhealthy garbage of artificially hydrogenated oils, so stay away!
I hope you enjoyed this interesting look at good trans fats vs. bad trans fats and use the information to arm yourself with healthier food options for a better body.