I have conversations about fat every day. Everybody wants to chat about his or her fat. Some people want to talk about other people’s fat. People are genuinely concerned about the fat in their diets, your lunch, and yesterday’s breakfast. Everyone is talking about fat. Kids these days have too much of it and movie stars need more of it. Atkins fanatics don’t get anything but it. Well I would like to clear up any misconceptions about it.
Most people have been taught in recent history to avoid trans fat. It has been given the title of “devil” and even McDonald’s is trying to keep their name from touching. However not many people know that trans fat is just another way of saying partially hydrogenated fat. There are boxes of cookies and piecrust all over the supermarket with big red letters screaming, “NO TRANS FAT!” but the nutrition label hasn’t been forced to comment on partially hydrogenated fats. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you might be eating tons of the stuff and believe me, it’s in everything. The label can say 0 percent trans fat and still contain partially hydrogenated fat. Ok, so why should we lay off the PHF? Sure, I’ve heard, heart disease, clogged arteries, higher cholesterol, but they say that about everything. What is it really going to do to me? Well, since you’ve asked, let me start from the beginning:
The process of hydrogenation is heating an oil (usually vegetable or soybean oil because it’s inexpensive) and then injecting hydrogen bubbles through it. When the fatty acids get some of the hydrogen, they become denser. If an oil is fully hydrogenated it is a solid fat. If you only partially hydrogenate it then it is just, sort of solid, like butter, but for half the cost. So far sounds fine, right. Cheap butter made from something with vegetable in the title? Sign me up! Unfortunately, PHO is a fairly new phenomenon. It wasn’t until the 1970s that manufacturers started using it in processed foods. Because it isn’t natural, our bodies don’t know what to do with it. These new fatty acids look like other fats, but are just a little different. The body thinks they look okay so it puts them to work guarding our cell walls and transporting our vitamins. Unfortunately they work for the bad guys. They let invaders get through the cell walls and they don’t pick up the right supplies. They are totally messing with us. And to boot, they are making it really difficult for any actual good fats to get in and fix the problem. All the mono and poly unsaturated fats are hanging out waiting to get their turn but the PHO fats won’t let them have a go. They just keep piling up outside the cell walls. Soon our bodies have to create more fat cells in order to house them all. And soon enough that means we get fatter.
