ALLOW ME TO TELL YOU IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL. I will show you pretty pictures and there will not be a test. READ IT, BECAUSE THIS POST WILL HELP YOU NOT DIE. Seriously, investing fifteen minutes in reading this could add years to your life.
Let's start our lesson with a brief word on fats in general. Fats are, in a word, delicious. They contribute to a feeling of fullness. When you try to cut them out of your diet, as my eating disorder has forced me to do countless times, you will become HUNGRY AS FUCK and actually eat more calories overall, which your body will convert into fat, thus completely defeating your purpose.
Eat 60 grams of fat every day. Do it.
There are two main categories of fats: saturated and unsaturated. Saturated fats look like this:
The fat tails are straight, and thus they can pack closely together into solid formations, in places like your arteries. (The actual mechanism of plaque formation is WAY MORE COMPLICATED, but this is a useful way to get at what's actually going on.)
You're clear to eat a healthy amount of saturated fats -- 15 grams or so per day -- just don't overdo it. If you're eating a good diet (vegetable-heavy, lots of whole foods, easy on the meats), it's pretty difficult to eat much more than that.
Moving on! Normal unsaturated fats look like this:
See that extra line by the red arrow? That's a double bond, and that shit is super cool. You notice how the molecule is all wonky? That's because the double bond introduces a "kink" into the molecule. These fats can't pack closely together in your arteries to form plaques. (If you're having trouble picturing the concept of molecular packing, take out a fresh ream of paper. The smooth sheets are like saturated fats. Now crinkle up each sheet of paper and throw it into a pile. That's like unsaturated fat. Congratulations, you have just wasted a bunch of paper for no reason.)
Unsaturated fat has all the delicious flavor of its saturated counterpart, but without all those pesky triple-bypass surgeries. PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH.
LABORATORY EXERCISE: take a look in your kitchen, and pull out some butter and olive oil. Butter, you will notice, is solid, whereas the olive oil is liquid. Butter is mostly saturated fat (molecules are packed together), and olive oil is mostly unsaturated fat (wonky molecules are going all crazy up in this bottle). That's essentially what it looks like in your arteries: butter forms solid plaques, whereas the olive oil stays liquid and just cruises right on through. If you eat reasonable amounts of both, your body will break them down in short order: no harm, no foul.
Okay, you are now an expert on all the fats that occur in nature. Now take a look at this bitch:
HOLY SHIT, it's got that weird extra line, but it also has a straight tail! HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?
Ladies and gentlemen, you have just been trans-fat'd.
Trans fats pack down in your arteries just like saturated fats, but with the added benefit of staying there forever, because your body is physically incapable of breaking them down!
Trans-fats are created in a factory through a process called “partial hydrogenation.” This process converts unsaturated fats into saturated ones (“saturated” with hydrogen, that is). They stop the process halfway, which creates these toxic franken-fats (there is a really topical joke here about blue balls but I'm too much of a feminist to take the bait). The freaky-shaped double bond is totally unrecognizable to your body, so it has no idea how to break the molecule apart.
Trans-fats intake is linked to risk for ALL KINDS of shit, from depression and infertility to cancer and the diabeetus. You could argue that the relationship is correlative rather than causal, since trans-fats are found in processed foods, and maybe you're just measuring the effects of poor diet in general. It's impossible to say with any certainty, because there is a real dearth of research into trans-fat biochemistry. WHATEVER. One thing is for sure: TRANS-FATS COAT YOUR ARTERIES AND KILL YOU WITH THE POWER OF SATAN. Don't eat them, pretty please.
If they're so toxic, why are they in our food? you might ask, and I would answer with a long-winded rant about industry-friendly laws and all the shills for Kraft foods that now work as "regulators" in the FDA, and then I'd wrap it all up with an eloquent speech in favor of campaign finance reform. But I already wrote all that in my hilar-insane coffee-and-sleep-deprivation-fueled essay, "Trans Fats and Neoliberal Capitalism," which was tragically destroyed in the great hard drive crash of '06.
It made no sense and I got an A+. College!
But I am trying to do science, not politics, so I guess the more germane question is: why does the industry want to put them in our foods in the first place? The answer is about as mundane as you might expect: they are marginally less expensive than an equivalent mix of natural un/saturated fats. Also trans-fatty foods can sit on shelves for longer before going bad, because the molecules resist spontaneous breakdown. Also also, major food factories don't want to change their recipes, because that money could be better spent on designing X-TREME! NEW! PACKAGING! WITH SNOWBOARDERS OR SOME SHIT!!!
Uh, Kraft? I think foods are SUPPOSED to rot if you leave them on a shelf for five years. THAT IS THE NATURE OF BIOLOGICAL ENTITIES.
We're not even talking about quick-rotting fruits and vegetables, my friends. We're talking about the difference between peanut butter that lasts three years vs. one that lasts five, and you're paying for that extra shelf life with heart attacks. WHAT THE FUCK, THIS ISN'T EVEN DEBATABLE, CHANGE YOUR RECIPES OR I'LL CUT YOU.
Trans-fats add no deliciousness to your foods (natural oils would be far tastier -- crisco can't hold a candle to butter or olive oil). They make foods imperceptibly cheaper, and they extend the shelf life on foods that already have very long shelf lives. They are not found in any natural food source1, and since they were introduced in 1910, your body has not evolved2 any mechanism to break them down. From a consumer standpoint, they have absolutely no benefits to counter their BLATANT TOXICITY. If we had a functioning democracy, they would be banned faster than you could say "coronary artery disease."
There are some foods that are bad for you, but can be eaten in small quantities. Juice, soda, refined flour, red meat: all of these are bad for you, but you can enjoy them infrequently without suffering serious health effects.
Trans fats, on the other hand, are harmful in any amount. When you eat them, your intestines see them and think, "Oh, look at this delicious molecule! It will provide me with much energy." So they suck it up before they look at it more closely and realize, "OH SHIT, I CAN'T USE THIS AT ALL." So they pass it along to your arteries, where they are deposited forever and ever and ever. Even small amounts of fat will build up in your body over time, so it's imperative that you don't eat ANY.
The 2008 labeling laws are pretty worthless, because they allow manufacturers to round down to the nearest half gram. If a package advertises "0g trans fat," it probably has 0.49g of trans fat, which is infinity percent more than your body can break down. At least the new labels help you catch major trans fat offenders, like canned frosting,
EDIT: Oh for shit's sake. I just went to the store and discovered that even though coffee creamer's main ingredients are sugar and partially hydrogenated oil (SO TASTY), it actually says it has "0g trans fat per serving." Case in point: if something is made ENTIRELY OF HYDROGENATED OILS but can still be advertised as having "0g trans fat," then we have a serious problem on our hands.
Okay, so here's the plan. Before you purchase or consume ANYTHING, please read every word those long, boring ingredients lists. Do a scan for "hydrogenated oil" or "partially hydrogenated oil." If it's anywhere on the list, light that shit on fire and run in the opposite direction.4, 5
Quick tip for getting out of the grocery store quickly: buy more fruits and veggies! An apple's ingredient list is pretty short. <3
You will probably find trans fats in everything, but don't despair! Substitute milk and sugar for that nasty Coffee-Mate bullshit. Use a mix of olive oil and butter instead of margarine. Swap out your Jif peanut butter for Smart Balance (it doesn't taste like hippie crap, I swear!). And just stop eating canned frosting, because that shit is seriously awful.
So, in summary:
-trans fats cause heart disease
-also your body is PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE of ever breaking them down
-trans fats are also probably hiding under your bed with a knife OH MY GOD RUN
-eat apples, motherfuckers
1Okay, there is ONE very specific kind of natural trans fat that is found in the milk of ruminants, but once you eat it, the trans bond is immediately converted into a conjugated double bond, with the second bond being in the natural cis conformation OKAY THIS IS GETTING WAY TOO COMPLICATED, I'M SORRY I SAID ANYTHING. Just trust me, the natural shit is a) only found in milk and beef and b) is not dangerous.
2If you're reading this from a Louisiana public school, please substitute the phrase "God hasn't commanded the necessary catabolizing enzyme into existence."
3Margarine was hailed by industry shills as a "healthy" alternative to butter. This is because they failed to notice (or deliberately ignored) the crucial distinction between normal unsaturated fats and trans-fats and lumped them all together. What a difference a double bond orientation can make.
4May not actually be legal. Void where prohibited.
5For reasons I won't get into here, "fully hydrogenated" oils are technically okay.
Pff. If my body still hasn't learned how to break those buggers down after all these years, maybe it deserves what's coming to it.
ReplyDelete*scoops frosting into mouth from a gallon bucket*