“Trans Fat in Meat and Dairy”
Trans fats are bad,
increasing one's risk of heart disease sudden death and diabetes,
even perhaps aggression.
Trans fat intake has been associated with overt aggressive behavior impatience and irritability
Trans Fats are basically only found one place in nature
animal fat.
The food industry however found a way to synthetically create these toxic fats
by hardening vegetable oil in a process called hydrogenation which
rearranges their atoms to make them behave more like animal fats.
Although most of America's trans fat intake has traditionally come from
processed foods containing partially hydrogenated oils
a fifth of the trans fats in American diet used to come from animal products.
1.2 grams out of the 5.8 total consumed Daily on average.
But now the trans fat labeling has been mandated and
places like New York City banned the use of partially hydrogenated oils the intake of
Industrially produced trans fat is down to about 1.3,
so that means about 50% of Americans trans fat intake now comes from
animal products.
According to the official USDA nutrient database
cheese, milk, yogurt, burgers, chicken fat, turkey meat, baloney, hot dogs
came up to about between 1 to 5 percent trans fats.
They also found small amounts of trans fats in non hydrogenated vegetable oils
due to steamed deodorization or stripping during the refining process
Now is getting a few percent trans fats a problem though?
The most prestigious scientific body in the United States the National Academies of Science
concluded that the only safe intake of trans fats is zero.
In their report condemning trans fats they couldn't even assign a tolerable upper daily limit
of intake because any incremental increase in trans fatty acid intake
increases coronary heart disease risk.
There's been controversy though as to whether the trans fats naturally found in animal products
are as bad as the synthetic fats in partially hydrogenated junk food.
The latest study supports the notion that trans fat intake, irrespective of source
animal or industrial increases cardiovascular disease risk
especially it appears in women.
Because trans fats are unavoidable on ordinary non-vegan diets
getting down to zero percent trans fats would require
significant changes in patterns of dietary intake.
One of the authors of the report the director of Harvard's cardiovascular epidemiology program
famously explained why despite this they did not recommend a vegan diet.
We can't tell people to stop eating all meat and all dairy products.
He said well, we could tell people to become vegetarians, he added.
If we're truly basing this only on science we would,
but it is a bit extreme.
Wouldn't want scientists basing anything on science, now would we?
Nevertheless, the report concludes, it is recommended that trans fatty acid consumption
be as low as possible, while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet
Even eating vegan though there's a loophole in labeling regulations
that allows foods with trans fats that contain up to 0.5 grams per serving
to be listed as having... you guessed it
zero grams of trans fat.
This labeling is misguiding the public by allowing foods
to be labeled as trans fat-free when they are in fact not.
So to avoid all trans fats avoid meat and dairy refined oils and anything that says
partially hydrogenated in the ingredients list
regardless of what it says on the nutrition facts label.