My Heart Patient Diet: When Good Fats Go Bad: Why Food-Makers Use Unhealthy Fats

Why You Should Care

Learning about the types and quality of the ingredients in the foods you buy is an important first step to becoming a savvy health consumer. Food manufacturers have the ability to makes foods healthier, but they won't do so if the public doesn't demand better foods. You can't demand high-quality foods unless you can recognize poor-quality products.

Modern Advice for Fat in a Healthy Diet

For many years, conventional advice to heart patients was to eat a low-fat and low-cholesterol diet to prevent or heal heart disease. We now know that more important than the amount of fat in your diet is the types of fats and oils you eat. Similarly, medicine used to dictate that the most important thing about cholesterol was reducing total cholesterol. Modern research indicates that it's more important to raise good cholesterol (HDL).

How Fats Are Categorized

Since you need fat in a heart-healthy diet, you need to understand what makes good and bad fats different. Saturated and hydrogenated (trans) fats are the unhealthy types. They behave very similarly in the body due to their similar molecular structure. Fats are categorized according to the degree that the carbon molecules are saturated with (joined to) oxygen molecules. Fats from animal products and some plants (coconut oil) are naturally saturated.

However, in unsaturated fats, food manufacturers can use a process called hydrogenation. This process forces oxygen molecules to bind to the carbon on a fatty acid chain. This creates the trans fats that are commonly found in many processed foods.

Why Food-Makers Turn Good Fats Into Bad Ones

You might ask why someone would want to convert a good fat into an unhealthy one. The answer is due to the chemical properties of trans fats. You may already know that bad fats are solid at room temperature, but did you know that the chemical properties of trans fats extend the shelf life of processed foods?

That's why trans fats are so common in baked goods and snacks that are stored at room temperature. The longer the shelf life of the food, the less waste which means that food makers can maximize profits. Ever wonder why Twinkies and Oreos never seem to go bad? Now you know. Unprocessed, fresh, whole foods expire quickly, as food naturally should.

What Unhealthy Fats Do to Your Body

Unhealthy fats either have a negative or neutral effect on your heart and blood vessels. The fat in dark chocolate, stearic acid, is saturated but not harmful. The saturated fats in meat and whole fat dairy products may cause or worsen heart disease by raising bad cholesterol (LDL). Trans fats are twice as harmful by raising bad cholesterol and lowering good cholesterol (HDL).

It's important to note that some trans fats are naturally found in some foods from animal sources. However, the main source of trans fats in the typical Western diet are foods in drive-through restaurants and store-bought baked goods such as cookies, crackers, chips, etc.

Voting With Your Wallet

Food manufacturers don't make what people don't buy. Conversely, they make more of what people desire and demand. Make a conscious effort to become a reader of nutrition labels for packaged and prepared foods. The healthiest foods are whole, fresh foods without labels, but you still have to purchase some processed and packaged items. Practice making healthier fat choices by comparing the following products from the FDA consumer information page on trans fats:

***Compare Spreads!***
Keep an eye on Saturated Fat, *Trans* Fat **and** Cholesterol!
	Margarine, stick	Margarine, tub

	Saturated Fat : 2g + Trans Fat : 3g Combined Amt.: 5g	Saturated Fat : 1 g + Trans Fat : 0.5g Combined Amt.: 1.5g
	Cholesterol: 0 % DV	Cholesterol: 0 % DV

***Compare Desserts!***
Keep an eye on Saturated Fat, *Trans* Fat **and** Cholesterol!
Granola Bar ±		Cake, Iced and Filled ±

Saturated Fat : 1 g + Trans Fat : 0 g Combined Amt.: 1 g		Saturated Fat : 3.5g + Trans Fat : 4.5g Combined Amt.: 8 g
Cholesterol: 0 % DV		Cholesterol: 3 % DV