Health Alert 286
Remember when TV commercials asked you to give up "dangerous" real butter in favor of "Mother Nature friendly" margarine? The ads and packaging promised heart health by replacing animal fats with a new kind of vegetable fat. These high-profit fats became ubiquitous in packaged foods, fast food and school lunches.
Episode II came decades later when rebel health advocates began voicing their objections. Research began to expose an alarming inflammation, neurological degeneration and heart disease link to a by-product of artificial fat production we now know as trans-fats. With growing public awareness and a new law requiring labels to reveal trans-fat content in 2006, consumption of these oils will surely decline.
This sets the stage for Episode III coming real soon to a supermarket near you. Subtitle it "The Revenge of Kraft.”
In today’s Health Alert, we’ll see how we got into such a predicament with artificial fats, how to avoid them and why you should be warned of the next generation before the blockbuster promotions mislead us again.
Back in 1907, Proctor & Gamble was in the candle making business. In those days, candles were made from tallow, which is a form of animal fat. As tallow became more expensive, they hired a talented German chemist to come up with a substitute. He invented a way to use hydrogenation to turn liquid cottonseed oil into a fatty solid.
As electricity became more common, the need for candles dwindled. Not wanting to waste a proprietary product, someone noticed that it shared properties of lard but was very stable at room temperature and Crisco was born.
Made in a factory, trans-fats are patentable and dirt cheap. They can dramatically lengthen the shelf life of a packaged product, sometimes for years. And because these unnatural vegetable oils have no cholesterol, they could be sold as cholesterol-free.
With no knowledge of long-term effects, the FDA approved hydrogenated oils for food and we began an enormous experiment with the public’s health. As shocking as it seems, a product originally used as candles made its way into thousands of foods around the world with no long-term testing.
After decades of very widespread use, numerous studies link trans-fats to heart attacks, strokes and cancer to name just a few of their many problems. They have proven to increase your LDL (bad) cholesterol. What’s worse is that they decrease your HDL (good) cholesterol.(1) They also cause inflammation and rob your brain and heart of the real fats you need.
As common as they are, they can be hard for you to identify. Food producers have found many clever ways to disguise the label. To be sure you would need to avoid any package labeled with "shortening, cottonseed oil, corn oil, soy products and vegetable oils." You could do as I do and try to avoid food with labels in general. (I also eat real butter.)
You’ll find trans-fats in cookies, cakes, breads, crackers, potato chips, pudding, pies, frozen foods, salad dressing; "butter" flavored popcorn and French fries. Even so-called "health" foods like granola bars, high fiber cereals and multi-grain snack chips have trans-fats. Most "no cholesterol" margarine is still loaded with trans-fat.
All that deception will be difficult next year when packages will have to list the trans-fat content in grams. This is leading to one of the biggest food additive pursuits in history. At conferences, through our research staff and contacts we are seeing the first buzz of the next generation of artificial fats.
The industry has grown more sophisticated. A great variety of products are being groomed. They will be sold as having various health benefits. They are cleverly staying ahead of the FDA. Who knows how many decades they will be in our food before we know the consequences?
As they are introduced in the coming months, I will keep you forewarned.
In the meantime, natural fats are still the healthiest foods you can eat, especially omega-3 fatty acids. Get your fat from free-range or grass-fed animals, eggs, nuts and unprocessed oils, like virgin olive oil.(2)
Stay tuned for more on this story.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1 Hwang, G, MD, Lee, D, MD, "Trans-fat: The latest and worst fat on the block," Continuing Medical Education, Vol 27, No 2, Feb, 2005:49-54
2 Sears Al, MD, The Doctor’s Heart Cure, p.100, Dragon Door Publications, Inc.