Sunday, March 25, 2012

Partially Hydrogenated Oils and Trans Fats

So we hear almost everywhere, partially hydrogenated oils are terrible for your health and to look for food containing ZERO trans fats. Marketing can be a sneaky criminal when it comes to advertising and tricking people and here's how...

A nutrition label can say 0 trans fat if: it contains less than 0.5g of trans fat per serving. For fry oils, baking shortenings, margarines, and doughnut fry oils, 1 serving = 1 tablespoon.
Tricky huh?!

This afternoon I found myself grabbing a snack that I hadn't had in forever, Nilla Wafers. As usual I read the label and it said 8 wafers had zero trans fat so I decided to look at the ingredient list and sure enough partially hydrogenated oils were right in the middle of the list. How many does it take to consume for the amount of trans fat to add up? We don't know.. so the box was closed and put away..

Lesson from this: just because the label or marketing may say zero trans fat, look at the ingredient list. If you see partially hydrogenated oil, skip it and choose an alternative.

Accroding to the American Heart Association: Partially hydrogenated oils are created in an industrial process by which liquid vegetable oils are turned into more solid fat with the addition of hydrogen. Partially hydrogenated oils contain trans fats.

Fats - Trans Fats (header)

What can we take from this? Marketing and advertisements have beat the system to try to trick consumers that some foods are free of trans fats but still have partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredient list. As a consumer make sure to look at the ingredient list, not just the nutrition label and remember, smart snacking can lead to a healthier heart.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Ash

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