Is There Trans Fat in My Food?

Trans fats come from partially hydrogenated oils. An oil is liquid at room temperature. When manufacturers partially hydrogenate the oils, they are changing it from a liquid to a solid. Why? They want to make that product shelf-stable. In order for the food to sustain processing, shipping, and waiting on the shelf to be bought, it needs to be stable, not spoil. Partially hydrogenated oils accomplish this.

The problem with partially hydrogenated oils is that they contribute to heart disease and high cholesterol. Studies have shown that eating a lot of Trans fat can increase your LDL "bad" cholesterol, decrease your HDL "good" cholesterol, and increase blood fats.

Consumers, now with the knowledge that Trans fats are unhealthy, no longer want Trans fats in their food products. In 2006 the FDA passed a law stating that food companies must put the amount of Trans fat in their products in the nutrition facts label.

Here is where it gets tricky. If a food product has less than 0.5 grams of Trans fat, that food product can put 0 grams Trans fat on their package. That means if a serving of chips (about 15) has 0.49 grams Trans fat, manufacturers can put 0. The recommendation for how many grams people should have per day is no more than 1% of their total calories or less. For most people that will be about 2 grams.

Now let's look at that bag of chips again. What happens when we eat 2 servings? The amount of Trans fat we have consumed is 0.98 grams, not zero. Perhaps for breakfast we ate a pastry that said "0 trans fat" but also had 0.49 grams. Now we are up to 1.47 grams. How about some cookies? Zero Trans fats? Nope, again they have 0.49 per serving. Did we eat only eat 2 cookies? If we had maybe 4, we just ate another 0.98 grams of Trans fat. The totals…2.45 grams for just that one day! We just ate about 25% more Trans fat than recommended.

The solution is to always look at the ingredients list. If, in the ingredients, there is "partially hydrogenated oil" then there will be some Trans fat in that food. It could be 0.1 grams per serving or it could be 0.49 grams. Unfortunately, there is no way to know. Therefore the safest, and smartest, bet is to compare brands and choose products that use no partially hydrogenated oils.

And if you still choose to eat foods with partially hydrogenated oils, at least now you know it is your choice, and you are not eating unaware.