Types of Trans Fats

Discuss about the Trans fats in food.

There are two types of transfats in the name of natural and artificial trans fats. Natural trans fats are produced in guts of ruminant animals and therefore are found in both dairy and meat products. (Blair et al., 2016). Artificial fats on the other hand are those ones that are usually created in the industries through a process called hydrogenation where an element called hydrogen is added to the liquid vegetable oil. The basic dietary sources for Trans fats is the partially hydrogenated oils and they should be looked at on the list of ingredients that are found on the food packages (Galli & Risé, 2017). The United States Food and Drug Department in November 2013, declared hydrogenated oils as unhealthy for human consumption.

Trans fats are utilized in several companies for diverse reasons. Some of these reasons are that they are easy to use, they are cheap to manufacture and they have a long shelf life. Besides, the trans fats provide a desirable taste and texture to different foods (Mainali & Subczynski, 2018). Many restaurants also use the trans fats since deep frying foods with trans fats can be used several times in the commercial fryers. Majority of the countries like Denmark, Switzerland and Canada have already restricted the use of trans fats in the food service establishments.

Trans fats are found in many foods like the fried foods, doughnuts, baked foods, pie crusts, biscuits, frozen pizza, cookies, crackers and the stick margarines. One can however determine the quantity of the trans fats in the food by checking out the Nutrition Facts Panel on the package of the food (Dawczynski & Lorkowski, 2016). There are usually small amounts of trans fats in meat and dairy products and there has been few studies to elaborate the potential harmful effects of such trans fats. The American Heart Association usually advocates for cutting down the amount of Trans fats one consumes .It is also recommended that one limits the amount of trans fats by reading Nutrition facts panel on the foods they buy at the store and when one is eating, they should ask the kind of oils used in the cooking. According to the American Heart Association, adults who benefit from the lowering LDL cholesterol should reduce consumption of trans fats to 5-6% of the total calories.

There are different tips that can enable one reduce on the intake of the trans fats. They include: Consuming a dietary pattern whose focus is on the fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low fat dairy products, fish and nuts.One is also advised to reduce consumption of red meat as well as sugary foods and the beverages. People are also advised to use canola, safflower, sunflower or olive oil most often as this are naturally occurring and unhydrogenated vegetable oils (Sood et al., 2014). One is also advised to look out for foods that are made of unhydrogenated oil instead of the partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated vegetable oils or the saturated fats. Instead of butter, people are advised to use the soft margarine. One is also supposed to look out for 0 grams trans fats on the Nutrition Facts Label and no hydrogenated oils in the ingredients list (McLain & Conn, 2016). Finally, one is also advised to not eat doughnuts, cookies, crackers, muffins, pies and cakes frequently as they contain trans fats.

Sources of Trans Fats

The materials and methods for this particular study include different snacks that are found on the shelves of Several Supermarkets that are found in Toronto. The Supermarkets that were used for the study included Metro, Loblaws and the Walmart Supermarket. The snacks used in this case included chips, crackers and cookies that have partially hydrogenated fats (PHF).Ten labels of the prepared frozen foods were also examined for PHF .Margarine levels for PHF were also checked. An interview was also carried out on the consumer information about the meaning of modified oil and why the Trans fatty acids that are found in partially hydrogenated fats are bad for my health.

1. What is meant by the term modified oil? A modified oil is that type of oil whose stability has been improved through the process of hydrogenation.
2. Why are Trans fatty acids that are found in partially hydrogenated fats bad for someone’s health? Trans fatty acids are harmful to the health of the body since they increase the quantity of the bad or the LDL cholesterol in the body and decreases the good or the HDL cholesterol in the body. Besides, they promote immune system over activity and this causes inflammation and they are linked to heart diseases, Diabetes and even stroke.

The foods that I found out to contain hydrogenated oils include Cakes, pies and cookies whose packages were labeled 2 grams for PHF. Fried foods in their restaurants had the highest PHF at 5 grams. Margarine was labeled at 3 grams while the crackers and Microwave popcorns had 2 grams and 5 grams labeled PHF respectively. Doughnuts and frozen pizza had 3.3 and 1 gram respectively.

In the study, it was established that the following words are also used in the place of Partially Hydrogenated Fats: Ester, grease, fat, mineral oil, vegetable oil, lipid, tallow and finally saturated fats.

Most of us do buy margarine and consume it. Little do we know that stick margarine is in fact worse to a person’s health than the soft margarine as well as butter. However, most of us prefer the soft margarine just because it is labelled no to trans fats. Food manufacturers are known to be using trans fats in their products but now that we see the different health risks from consuming trans fats, many companies now started cutting down on the them because of the risks they are associated with (McCarthy, 2015). Trans fats have always been linked to health risks like high cholesterol that exposes us to risks such as heart diseases. Trans fat is an artificial substance manufactured by man through mixing hydrogen gas and vegetable oil and this is makes it to have an elongated shelf life and makes the food a little bit tastier, cheap as well as enhancing the flavor (Rasidi, 2016). These are the leading factors that make the manufactures to use trans fats in their products. When a certain product is labeled No trans-fat, that is no assurance that it is actually safe as the law allows any product to be labelled that way as long as the products contain below 0.5 grams of the trans fats.

Health Risks Associated with Trans Fats

There are two kinds of Tran’s fats known and they include the natural and the artificial Trans fats. These two types of Tran’s fats differ in several aspects. The biggest difference however that exist between them is that the natural Trans fats exist naturally in dairy products as well as meat (Dietz, 1990). This Trans fats are known to be made through the enzymatic processes in the guts of different ruminant animals. Based on this explanations, two key points have come up and they include: How the natural Trans fats are made and they are found. This forms a good comparison against their counter parts of the artificial Trans fats.

Artificial Tran’s fats are those that are manufactured by man through the process called hydrogenation in the polyunsaturated oils thus making them solid. Scientists however advocate for natural fats since they are beneficial to the human body as compared to the artificial fats. According to a study carried out by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in March of 2008 referred to as the TRANSFACT study that was carried out among women who consume Tran’s fatty acids from natural sources significantly raises the High Density Lipoprotein cholesterol in their bodies (Imperato, 2015). It should however be noted that HDL cholesterol is beneficial to the body.

HDL cholesterol is a microscopic blob made up of a rim of lipoproteins that surround a cholesterol at the Centre. The HDL is slightly dense as compared to other types of the cholesterol particles According to several experts, HDL cholesterol is not that harmful but beneficial as it acts in several ways to reduce the chances of the heart attacks or heart diseases (List, 2014). The HDL cholesterol acts by scavenging and removing the harmful LDL or the bad cholesterol from the body. Besides, the HDL also reduce, re use and finally recycle the LDL cholesterol through transporting it to the liver where it can now be reprocessed (Mills, Hall, & Berry, 2017). Finally, the HDL cholesterol is known to maintain the crew for the inner walls or the endothelium of blood vessels. The initial step of atherosclerosis is damage to the inner walls of the blood vessels that leads to heart attacks and strokes. HDL reduces this by scrubbing the walls of the blood vessels clean therefore keeping them very healthy. According to another study that was carried out by the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science at the University of Alberta, it was established that a diet full of trans vaccenic acid which is a natural animal fat that is usually found in the diary and beef products has the ability to curb or cut down on the risk factors that are associated with heart diseases, diabetes and finally obesity.

Tips to Reduce Trans Fat Intake

According to several studies, there are different pathways that are negatively impacted by trans fats as well as several mortalities. It however still remains unknown if elimination of the trans fats half way through life removes the ill effects of the trans fats intake during the initial half of the life. Tran’s fats are never eliminated 100% but most of their damage can be recovered (Blair, Sepulveda, & Papachristou, 2016). This is because there is cumulative effect and this means that if someone continue eating something that is bad, it cumulatively gets worse with time. The damage is not completely recoverable as well since an individual’s body as well as the cells are usually healthy at later stages of life. This implies that if someone was not healthier earlier, there is an effect on the telomerase activity and DNA damage earlier in life which permanently affects their lifespan (Barbut, 2011). The Telomerase shortens DNA so that as one gets older, one of the most important proteins become encoded in the DNA and are never produced eventually. Free radicals as well as other toxins from the trans fats in the body then attacks the DNA and this leads to the death of different cells. If the situation gets worse, mutations of the DNA leads to cancer in the future. This is now the theoretical explanation as to why there are more mortality in the old age because it is usually difficult to totally eliminate attacks on an individual’s DNA.Trans fats are however not free radicals and they have not shown any damage to the DNA. However, the cells that signal processes affected by the Trans fats are usually involved in the feedback loops which overlap with inflammatory and the metabolic signaling in the cells that have already shown to affect both the telomerase activity and the DNA damage (Al-Akash, Eid AbuRuz,et al, 2017). The evidence about this phenomenon is circumstantial but is persuasive.

The artificial Trans fats are usually processed by using crude chemical solvents such as hexane which is a component of gasoline, high heat, and pressure and there is the addition of a metal catalyst and then there is deodorization followed by bleaching. It is only a small amount of the solvent that is usually allowed to remain in the finished oil. This is just to imply that the artificial oil has become more of an industrial oil than a food oil. However, the FDA still allows food manufacturers to add this crap in food in large quantities even with well-known health risks. I always have this instinct that with time, all these harmful oils will be banned globally. This is because they cause inflammation of the blood vessels as a result of the bad cholesterol accumulation and this leads to clogging of the blood vessels.

According to earlier explanations, Tran’s fats exist naturally though in small fractions in milk and meat. However, majority of these undesirable fats are added by the manufactures of different food stuffs. From 1911 when Procter and Gamble came up with the Crisco, several companies have from then incorporated artificial Tran’s fats since they have commercial favorable properties like extending the shelf life of the commodities as well as they are stable during deep frying (Kim, Jeong, Lee, & Han, 2017) .Finally, they are palatable (Ni Mhurchu, Aston, & Jebb, 2010). Due to this fact, the artificial or rather the harmful oils have been added into diverse foods that include mostly fast foods as shown in the graph below.However, the primary dietary source for the artificial Trans fats is partially the hydrogenated oils that are created by adding the element hydrogen to vegetable oils.

Studies began revealing the negative health effects of the artificial trans fats and by 2000, it was apparently clear that artificial trans fats increase the risks of coronary heart diseases. Denmark was the first to act by banning hydrogenated oils back in 2003.Other countries like the United States, followed suit and the New York City banned restaurant foods in 2006 while the State of California did the same in 2008.

Ten years after the initial ban of this undesirable oils, the FDA has come up with regulations to reduce their usage. The CDC issued a report that reducing consumption of this harmful would reduce the rate of heart diseases and death as well.

In Australia for example, the Federal government has on several circumstances shown its intent to actively reduce trans fats in foods. The Federal assistant health minister in the year 2007, addressed a congregation of delegates from the fast food industry on the importance of reducing trans fats in foods. The delegates did cooperate and decided to opt for alternative oils when cooking. As compared to other countries, the consumption of trans fats in Australia is relatively lower and falls within the range that is recommended by the World Health Organization. This is very encouraging despite the fact that the federal laws in Australia does not necessarily require food manufactures to label the quantity of trans fats in food packages. In Canada, there is an enforcement that the quantity of trans fats be included on the food products as from the year 2005.However, there still remains controversy since natural and artificial trans fats are hard to distinguish on an individual basis. Regulations were however released in 2006 to limit the level of trans fats in foods to 5% of the total fats and 2% for margarines and related products. Finally in the United States of America, the FDA came up with regulations in 2003.The current regulations however regard 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving as being trans-fat free. In the 2013,the FDA finally declared trans fats are harmful.

Conclusion

There are two types of Tran’s fats in the name of natural and the artificial Trans fats. The natural Trans fats are those found in the dairy and beef products and are believed to be manufactured in the gut of ruminant animals. Artificial Tran’s fats on the other hand are made through the process of hydrogenation by solidifying polyunsaturated oils. According to scientists from different studies like the one conducted by the Department of Agriculture in the University of Alberta, it is the natural trans fats that are beneficial to the body since they have a higher proportion of the HDL cholesterol that scavenges and consumes up the harmful LDL cholesterol in the body. Besides, it makes the wall of the blood vessels clean and healthy therefore protecting atherosclerosis. In supermarkets, several foods contain Trans fatty acids and my study found out that for example biscuits contain 3 grams of the fats. Other than trans fatty acids, other names used include mineral oils, tallow and the saturated fats. Consumption of trans fats lead to various health complications especially those that affect the heart. There should be a total ban on the hydrogenated oils

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