Enjoy the Holidays WITHOUT Trans Fats
Guest post provided by Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”.
So you’ve decided to eat healthy over the holidays. This year, you’re going to buck the trend and avoid that typical six-pound weight gain. What’s more: This year is the year to really get into shape, and take your overall health and vitality up a notch.
But now? With so much contradictory advice out there – paleo, raw foods, vegan, high protein, low fat, and my own recently published high-fat program (“Smart Fat: Eat more Fat, Lose More Weight, Get Health Now!”) – no wonder consumers are confused!
But there’s one thing every single health professional agrees on, no matter where they stand on the nutritional advice spectrum: Cut out the trans fat.
What are trans fats?
Trans fats are an artificially produced kind of “frankenfat” blamed for an estimated 20,000 heart attacks annually, and another 7,000 heart disease deaths. And they are a serious public health concern. They’re made by artificially forcing hydrogen atoms into unsaturated fat, forming a kind of mutant fat which is great for the shelf life of processed foods, but not for the life of the humans who consume it.
The ironic part is that the reason we put trans fat in our diet in the first place was an ill-conceived attempt to get saturated fat out. The irony is that the saturated fats we banished from our diet are turning out to be either neutral or beneficial, while hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fats) are just plain bad news.
How can trans fats get hidden inside “zero trans fat” foods?
The FDA is now calling for the elimination of trans fats from the food supply over the next three years. But big commercial food manufacturers are a crafty bunch. Seeing the writing on the wall, Big Food began lobbying for loopholes in the regulations years ago. Sure enough, they got one. And it’s a doozy.
If there’s less than 1/2 gram of trans fat in a “serving”, the manufacturer is allowed to say “zero trans fat” on the label. So manufacturers started making the “serving size” ridiculously small. (You’ve seen this for yourself when you buy a cookie or a small bag of chips, and the label says “number of servings: 3”.) By keeping the serving size unrealistically small, manufacturers can sneak up to 0.4 (4/10 of a gram) of trans fat into each “serving”. When you eat an actual, real life serving size of the food in question, you could easily be consuming a few grams of trans fat without ever knowing it. Multiply that by just a few foods with hidden trans fats and it starts to add up, especially since the ideal amount of trans fat in the human diet is zero.
The only way to know for sure if a food contains trans fat is to read the ingredients list. Don’t pay attention to the “zero trans fats” on the front label. Turn the food over and read the ingredients. If it says “partially hydrogenated” or “hydrogenated” oil, it’s got trans fats, no matter what the front of the package says. Period.
The good news is that packaged food items labeled “zero trans fats” that also contain palm oil are much more likely to truly be 100 percent “zero trans fats” with no hidden trans fats. That’s because palm oil, most of which is certified sustainably sourced from Malaysia, is naturally trans fat free. Palm oil is one of the good guys: A healthy saturated fat that got wrongly demonized in the dark ages of dietary advice. Healthy saturated fats – such as coconut oil, Malaysian palm oil or the fat from grass-fed beef – are perfectly safe and healthy, unlike their hydrogenated vegetable counterparts.
What holiday foods are more likely to contain trans fats?
Prepackaged stuffing, powdered gravy mixes, refrigerated dough products, canned frostings, margarine and most other spreads, frozen pie crusts (one of the worst trans fat offenders), many peanut butters, and frozen potatoes as well as potato flakes. These convenience foods are exactly the things many busy cooks use as shortcuts during the holidays.
What are the best ways to avoid trans fats in your holiday cooking?
Instead of prepackaged stuffing – which may also contain other unhealthy ingredients – pick up some day-old bread. Have your little ones help by tearing the bread into pieces the night before. Create a family tradition with homemade stuffing.
There’s nothing unhealthy about using real butter. Or, choose a heart-healthy spread such as Smart Balance which is made with Malaysian certified sustainable palm oil.
Prepare your own gravy by whisking a few tablespoons of flour or cornstarch into the turkey drippings.
Make drop biscuits from scratch. They only take a few minutes and require a handful of ingredients. Likewise, make your own pie crust. Or try something more exotic such as a pissota con l’oio, which is the fancy name for red palm oil cake. It’s made with lemon zest and sweet liqueur. It’s loaded with beta carotene and other nutrients that support heart and brain health.
At parties, fill your plate with real foods. The less processed, the better. When possible, offer to bring a side dish or appetizers. That way, you know there will be sure that there is at least one healthy item on the table.
If you do go eat foods that contain trans fats, don’t beat yourself up. It’s still going to happen now and then. Just keep reading those food nutrition labels, and watching for the food industry’s code words.
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I hope you’ve enjoyed this guest Q&A with Dr. Bowden.
Be sure to access the free ecourse “How to Lower Cholesterol in 8 Simple Steps” at http://lowercholesterolwithlisa.com.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
Health Pro for HealthCentral
