trans fats

[undesputable]

what excatly are they and why are they bad for you? i know theyre really bad thats all i know.....and i also read that anything that says that contains "partially hydrogenated oil" has trans fats in it..... but about every ingrident label ive seen contains partially hydrogenated oil...even the "healthy foods"

 

[akindofblue]

but about every ingrident label ive seen contains partially hydrogenated oil...even the "healthy foods"

Guess what. They're not really as healthful as they claim, then, are they?

Just a general word of advice, stick to non-processed foods. You'll quickly discover that they have much lower glycemic indexes and generally lack the problem ingredients food manufacturers use to make their products more appealing. And yes, partially hydrogenated corn syrup is one of the worst "foods" you can dump into your body. And yes, it's in everything. Stick with the non-processed food.

To answer your first question, transfatty acids are fats that have been hydrogenated. In an unsaturated fat molecule, the lipid chains trailing the carboxylic acid head have double bonds in them. They tend to be liquids at room temerature, as the double bonds form kinks and prevent them from weakly bonding with other fatty acids. Saturated fats don't have any double bonds, and hence are solid at room temperature.

Well, as it became the trend to cook with healthier oils (as opposed to lard, etc...), it was found that the unsaturated oils became unstable over time and quickly went rancid. So in order to maintain shelf-life, unsaturated oils were hydrogenated to prevent oxidation. Some of these hydrogen molecules would be lost, but the normal orientation of the double bond would be changed (thus trans fats). (The end and desired result is also that these unstable oils would become more solidified and stable.)

Basically, trans fatty acids behave a lot like saturated fats. They elevate LDL ("bad" cholesterol) and also lower HDL ("good "cholesterol) levels. Why does this happen? Well, when your body converts saturated fats into cholesterol, saturated fats are converted to trans fatty acids along the way. Thus, the trans fats just jump right into your biological pathway and are converted into LDL cholesterol.

Avoid them just as you would avoid saturated fats.

 

[undesputable]

wow thats interesting...thanks for the reply

as all the other *bastards* didnt reply

 

[TheRisingSon]

Nice post akindofblue. Also, see a simple google search; http://www.google.com/search?q=trans+fats&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

 

[undesputable]

oh a question that has been burning my insides is...CAN YOU BURN AND GET RID OF TRANS FATS? or do they stay on you all the time?

 

[TheRisingSon]

Your question makes no sense... Do you mean: Can you reduce the effects of trans fats that I have already injested? Can I eliminate trans fats from my diet?

Either way, yes. Did you read any of the articles from the Google search? I am of the opinion that if you teach a man to fish, he will go away Atleast read the first few articles. If after that, you have a specific question, come back.

 

[undesputable]

i did the google search before you even posted, but i wanted to see what ppl would say, bc these days theres so much bull**** on the internet of just geeks putting up a webpage with complelty unreliable information.....and what i meant is that after youve ingested a ****load of trand fats if you can burn them or eliminate them with excersice?

 

[RochambeauAllStar]

Look, there is no specific way to tell you body to get rid of *this* macronutrient and keep *that* one. Your body does what it does. Those love handles... They aren't trans fats. They are fat. Your body makes no distiction once they are store.

OK, since we now know that trans fats are man made, and that we want to avoid them, what shall we reduce from our diet. Mainly foods with alot of "shelf life (after all, that's why they were created)." Let's get rid of donughts for one (huge amounts of trans fats), twinkies, and all of Little Debbie's product line. Of course, we knew they were bad before we even heard of transfats, right?

OK, now that we are done consuming them, lets get rid of their effects. Again, not rocket science, exercise!

There really is no seceret to healthy living. Common sense will take you far. Just as exerciese can reverse 10 years of smoking, so can it reverse bad eating habbits. The body wants to live, we just need to help it along a bit.

 

[undesputable]

Originally posted by RochambeauAllStar

OK, now that we are done consuming them, lets get rid of their effects. Again, not rocket science, exercise!

thats all i was asking.... since transfats are indeed manmade fats and have not been in our diets from when we first came, if our body had a way or getting rid of them or convert to bad cholesterol and stick right in your arteries....

im not trying to get around exercise to solve these types of problems, in fact i pobably excercise more than youd imagine. but before i knew about these fats i still ate processed foods ....

 

[B.A.]

Hydrogenated oils/ fats do not necessarily contain trans fatty acids, nor are they created by simply heating vegetable oils to *high* temperatures (such as that of frying). There are numerous factors required to produce trans fats: A tank of hydrogen (as part of the hydrogenation process); a sealed container/ vat (to allow for a vacuum to form); and more importantly a catalyst such as a heavy metal alkaloid one.

Simply put trans fats have been altered on the molecular level - the hydrogen atoms have been re-arranged on the fatty acid/ carbon chain (you may also have heard of cis bonding being converted to trans bonding via this process of hydrogenation - this is effectively a reaction that "straightens" out the fatty acid allowing for said fatty acids to be packaged to a greater density and also to increase melting temperature - two factors that e.g. a company selling margarine etc would find useful.)

The body cannot distinguish between trans fatty acids and "normal" fatty acids. So when you ingest them these trans fats form part of the cell membranes. Trans fatty acids inhibit literally thousands of essential chemical reactions within the body/ cell, such as energy and prostoglandin production.

The plus is that trans fats can be gradually "removed" from the body by depletion if you revert back to eating foods containing unaltered fats and avoiding processed foods.

- B.A.