Trans fats that have been in the American foods system with heavy use since about the 1950s, they first made their way into our food stream shortly after World War II. Manufacturers love them because they were an inexpensive way to give consumers what they want.
One of the most easily identifiable trans fats is margarine. During the last century, margarine was widely used because of its affordability.
Fast-forward 60 years and now you have a whole host of evidence that trans fats are bad for you, your weight, and your heart.
What exactly do trans fats do to your weight?
Weight Gain on Same Calories
A recent study has shown that trans fats will cause a weight gain even if the total calories consumed are the same. According to Web M.D., a six-year study on monkeys showed that animals who ate saturated fats over the course of six years gained an average of 1.8% increase in body weight.
The monkeys who ate trans fats gained up to 7.2% body fat. That’s quite a different when it comes down to it. The monkeys were fed the same diet except for the type of fat they ate was different.
Hidden Trans Fats
Unfortunately, reading the labels may not be enough to keep trans fats out of your diet. The FDA made some tricky labeling laws to keep food manufacturers happy. One of these laws means that food can have up to .5 grams of trans fat per serving and still be labeled trans fat-free.
In the past food, manufacturers would make their serving sizes tiny so that way they could have the label read how they wanted it to read (for example “0 g trans fat”). Newer regulations have made it so that packaging designed to be eaten in one sitting has to have the whole nutrition facts as one serving.
Now instead of getting a muffin that is labeled trans fats free, but has four servings per muffin, you will get one muffin with one serving that has 2 g of trans. Make sure you check your serving sizes, so you’re not eating hidden trans fats.
Read the Ingredients List
The only real way to be sure that you’re not consuming trans fats is to read the ingredients list. You’ll know that your food is trans fat-free if you see no partially hydrogenated oils. Any partially hydrogenated oil is going to be a trans fat. Trans fats are also found in many vegetable oils, vegetable shortening, and shelf stable baked goods.
Trans Fats are Also Deadly Fat
Visceral fat, the fat stored underneath the muscle and around the internal organs is the most dangerous type of fat stored in the human body. Trans fats have the ability to increase visceral fat storages on the human body.
One of the scary things about trans fat is that it will relocate fat from other parts of the body and move it into abdominal visceral fat. This phenomenon impairs glucose disposal and increases glucose concentrations in the monkeys that were studied.
A study released in Obesity showed that the animals who were fed high trans fat diets over six years had changes in the mechanisms for how they metabolize carbohydrates. These metabolic changes can often lead to diabetes and other health risks.
While it is still not known exactly what about trans fats make them so dangerous there is clear evidence showing that trans fats have the ability to make you gain weight even without excess calorie consumption.
Trans fats will also cause weight distribution changes leading to an increase in visceral fat, the dangerous “heart attack” fat. Finally, trans fat consumption can result in metabolic changes that cause difficulty processing carbohydrates.
The increased glucose concentrations in the bloodstream indicate diabetes and diabetic like symptoms for those who consumed the high trans fat diets.
Trans fats are as bad as it comes when we talk about fat. What are some of your strategies to avoid these deadly fats in your diet?
