FATs Would You Rather That Yellow Patty In The Picture Be Butter? or Margarine? |
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Is butter bad for you? Is too much fat in your diet bad for you? What are the different types of fat? Here is the page where these questions get answered.
| Links To Articles About Fats | ||
| Click Here To Jump To The Article | Title Or Description | Comments |
| ...1... | Basic Definitions Of Words and Terms | Don't Miss this very important definition of terms |
| ...2... | LATEST USDA RESEARCH CONFIRMS HEALTH PROFESSIONALS’ RECOMMENDATIONS TO CHOOSE MARGARINE | |
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The "Industrial Revolution" for Fats and Oils Began in 1910 |
This article by Dr. Enig, and the next several, through #10 are some of the best you will ever read on why margarine is an evil substance |
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Fat Consumption |
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How Much Trans Fat is in Our Foods? |
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| ...6... | The USDA Perspective on Fats and Oils 3 Decades Ago | |
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Health Issues and Trans Fat |
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| ...8... |
Summary of Trans Fatty Acids |
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| ...9... | The Latest News on Trans Fatty Acids and Coronary Heart Disease | |
| ...10... | Mary G. Enig, Ph.D | Bio of the source of these several articles above |
Comments on the framework of food: Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fats, Basic definitions and explanations. This page provides more details on Fat. Click on the link above to review the other types of foods.
Fat is one of the body's basic nutrients, providing energy by furnishing CALORIES.
All forms of fat are made up of a combination of fatty acids, which are the building blocks of fats much as amino acids are the building blocks of PROTEINS.
Fats and oils are either saturated or unsaturated, the latter classification being broken down into monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. There is a another term to learn: trans-fatty acids.
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To illustrate the difference between the terms saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated, picture a fat molecule as a train of passenger cars. That is, the "train" is the molecule of fat. There are many passenger cars in this train just as there can be many atoms in a molecule. Most of the atoms in this molecule are carbon atoms. Carbon atoms are relatively large compared to hydrogen atoms. You could place some hydrogen atoms in the spaces between the carbon atoms. Or, those spaces could remain empty. |
When there are lots of hydrogen atoms in these spaces, the fat is said to be saturated. Consider it like the passenger car carrying lots of passengers. These passengers don't change the shape of the passenger car, but they do make the car more "solid" or more "saturated." The passenger car (with all that empty space) could hold lots of passengers or only a few.
There are many type of fats, as there are many different types of trains. Mostly, for this analogy to work, the differences would be in the length of the train. You can have short trains or long trains. Fatty acids exist in "chains." This is another analogy.
First I compared fat to a train, with passenger cars. You can also refer to fat as a chain. There can be many links in a chain. Each link would be one carbon atom. There could be room on this chain for other things, like hydrogen atoms, to be stuck onto the carbon atoms.
Some types of fat are like LONG trains, with lots of passenger cars. Propionic acid is a type of fatty acid with only three passenger cars (three atoms of carbon). Lignoceric acid is a type of fatty acid with 24 passenger cars (24 atoms of carbon).
If the train holds few or no passengers, it is unsaturated. If the train holds LOTS of passengers, it is saturated. There can be any condition in between.
If fat includes lots of hydrogen stuck in here and there among the carbon atoms, then that fat is called "saturated." If the fat contains practically no hydrogen atoms, the fat is called "unsaturated."
If there is only one or two seats empty, that fat is called monounsaturated -- mono-un-saturated fat. "Mono" means "one." This means that TWO hydrogen atoms could be added to this molecule.
If there are four to six or more seats available, it's polyunsaturated -- poly-un-saturated fat. "Poly" means "many." This means that FOUR or SIX or more hydrogen atoms could be added to this molecule. The term "unstable" should now be mentioned. When a fat has very few hydrogen atoms in it, it is called "unstable," and it is anxious to find some hydrogen atoms to fill in the empty spaces.
Like any train conductor, the train with no passengers is looking for passengers.
So, the more hydrogen that is contained in amongst the carbon atoms in a molecule (and among the molecules in a fatty acid chain) of fat the more saturated that molecule is -- the more saturated that fat is.
In general, saturated fats come from animal sources and are solid enough to hold their shape at room temperature (about 70°F).
Exceptions to this rule are tropical oils such as COCONUT oil and PALM oil, which, though of plant origin, are semisolid at room temperature and highly saturated.
In addition to the two aforementioned tropical oils, the most commonly commercially used saturated fats are BUTTER, LARD, and SUET.
If you take corn, or peanuts, or olives, or cotton seeds, and squeeze them hard, you get the oil out of them. This is vegetable oil or vegetable fat. This type of fat, as mentioned above, is usually in a liquid form at room temperature. It is the type of fat with lots of empty spaces in amongst the carbon atoms. It is called "unsaturated fat." In fact, there is so much space that these are usually called "polyunsaturated" fats.
I mentioned that this type of fat is unstable. You now realize that butter (a stable form of fat) does not get rancid easily, whereas vegetable oils (unstable fat) can get rancid quite easily.
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If you ADD hydrogen to these unsaturated fats, you get "hydrogenated" oil -- oil to which hydrogen has been added. The added hydrogen makes the oil into a solid, but the fat is still called an "unsaturated" fat because there are still many spaces between the carbon atoms that could be filled up with more hydrogen. It is LESS saturated than it had been, however. You now have margarine and vegetable shortening. The greater the degree of hydrogenation, the more saturated the fat becomes. Many commercial products contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. |
In the case of margarine, the process allows an oil to be partially hardened and molded into tub or stick form. Fat for shortening can be hydrogenated to give it a creamy consistency. Hydrogenation also increases the time it takes before oils become rancid, so they stay fresh longer.
In most oils and margarines, the hydrogenation process is controlled to achieve stability. The finished products may contain large amounts of unsaturated fatty acids and fairly small amounts of saturated fatty acids.
Trans Fatty Acids
Now, the final term to understand is "trans fatty acids." "Trans" means "across." In the analogy of the train and the passenger cars, the "trans fatty acids" would be where some passenger sits on TWO SEATS in the car. There is only one passenger, but because he sits on two seats some persons might think there are two passengers. And, it is also true that because he is sitting on two seats there is no room for another passenger to sit there.
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How many passengers are there in that back seat? If you are in the train (or cab) business, you want all the passengers you can get on that seat. Trans Fatty Acids are like a seat big enough for two having only one passenger. He sits "across" ("trans) the seat so there is no room for another. |
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So, this is like a "false passenger," and thus it is true that trans fatty acids "seem" to be more saturated, but it is a false perception. There are no more hydrogen atoms in the substance but some of the space for another hydrogen atom has been taken away by this chemical process.
Trans Fatty Acids are a type of fat created when oils are hydrogenated, which chemically transforms them from their normal liquid state (at room temperature) into solids. During the hydrogenation procedure extra hydrogen atoms are pumped into unsaturated fat, thereby creating trans fatty acids. So, you have the original oil (unsaturated) and the new, chemically converted oil (trans fatty acids). The trans fatty acids are somewhat similar to "saturated" fat but they have been produced through chemical means rather than through nature. And, they are so different from regular saturated fats that they cannot be called "saturated."
Trans fatty acids can be found in a wide array of processed foods including cookies and MARGARINES. Any food with "hydrogenated oils" or "partially hydrogenated oils" on the label contains trans fatty acids.
If anyone wants to say that "fats are bad for you," they should then differentiate between the "natural saturated fats" like butter, and the "unnatural saturated fats" like margarine (which contain some natural unsaturated fat and the unnatural saturated trans fatty acids). Remember that some researchers still refer to the trans fatty acids as "saturated," that is not a useful designation. They are, simply, trans fatty acids.
LATEST USDA RESEARCH CONFIRMS HEALTH PROFESSIONALS’ RECOMMENDATIONS TO CHOOSE MARGARINE
WASHINGTON (September 22, 1998) - A new study from the Agricultural Research magazine, research was recently conducted by Dr. Joseph Judd, a prominent nutrition researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Services’ Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland. Dr. Judd and his colleagues recently completed a clinical study with 46 men and women that compared butter with two types of margarines (margarine with either a moderate amount of trans fat or no trans fat). Dr. Judd found that even margarines with a moderate amount of trans fat had a much better effect on blood cholesterol levels than did butter. While the margarine that contains the moderate amount of trans fat lowered levels of “bad” cholesterol compared to butter (which is rich in saturated fat), the trans fat-free margarine fared slightly better. Neither of the margarines lowered the levels of good cholesterol, either.
“One reason we saw these results is that, compared to butter, most margarine products contain more poly- and mono-unsaturated fats than trans or saturated fats,” states Dr. Judd. “Too many times, consumers get confused by scientific reports on specific fats; then they translate those reports to changes in their eating behavior,” he adds. Because this has happened over the past few years, particularly with margarine, Dr. Judd reminds consumers, “We do not eat specific fats. We eat foods such as margarine that contain a wide variety of fats.” While he believes that it is wise for consumers to reduce their intake of trans fats where they can, Judd warns, “you should not be overly concerned to the point you substitute saturated fats for trans fats. Saturated fats average about 12 percent of the total calories in the diet and are a major dietary factor in cardiovascular disease risk. Trans fats comprise only 2-3 percent of calories on the other hand.”
Dr. Judd’s research is the latest of several studies done around the world which demonstrate that margarine can be an important part of a heart-healthy diet. Seven other studies published or presented during the past two years, involving nearly 70,000 people, confirm Dr. Judd’s results. And all of these studies support the conclusion reaffirmed this year by the American Heart Association (AHA), recommending the use of the soft and liquid margarine products instead of butter.
“Consumers may not even realize they have been following the advice of these leading heart health professionals,” states Sue Taylor, a dietitian with the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers. “We now know that about 60 percent of consumer purchases today are tub and squeeze products -- the type products AHA suggests consumers use (and have proportions of fats similar to the products used in Dr. Judd’s research).” Taylor points out that even when you evaluate the trans and saturated fat in margarine products, margarine always wins over butter. “In fact, the lower fat margarine products contain 50-100 percent less of these two fats,” she notes.
“There has been more than a 30 percent reduction in the average fat content of margarine products since 1980, giving margarine products less total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, and fewer calories,” Taylor adds. “In addition, many margarine products now are low-fat and some are completely trans-free.”
![[Trans Fat InfoWeb]](http://www.oralchelation.com/technical/images/tfa1.gif)
In the 1930s, published texts on nutrition and dietetics included corn oil and peanut oil in lists of vegetable oils, and also referred to the commercial hydrogenation of cottonseed oil and its sale in the form of a solid fat.
Until shortly before World War II, margarines (which had originally started as blends of animal fats for a cheap butter substitute) were largely (90%) made of coconut oil, animal tallow, or lard; very little hydrogenation was required or used. By the 1940s, domestic vegetable oils made up 90% of the fat in margarines; hydrogenation was both required and used.
Prior to World War II (and depending on where one lived in Europe), much of the added fat or oil in the diet, other than the animal, poultry, and dairy fats, came either from (i) small presses such as was used for flaxseed oil in Eastern Europe; (ii) the larger presses used for olive oil in the Mediterranean area; or (iii) from the hydrogenation plants in countries such as Holland or Denmark. As these hydrogenation plants were closed down during the war, the native populace consumed whatever animal and dairy fats were available. Even though the war led to marked restrictions in food and the fat rations, the available fats were from animal and dairy sources.
Beginning in the 1950s, the food industry capitalized on its ability to turn liquid oils, which were plentiful, but not sufficiently marketable, into solid fats for the budding fast food industry and for the expanding baking and snack food industry.
Fat in the diets of Americans ranges from 30% to 43% of the calories depending on which survey you look at, and even in the 1890s the amount of fat in diets seems to have been at this level. The article on diets in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica included information on many dietary surveys; 339 to be exact, of which 238 were done in the U.S. The highest level of fat intake reported was for American lumbermen at 43.6% of calories, closely followed by Danish physicians at 42.9% of calories. Except for inmates in "insane hospitals" in the U.S. who averaged 29.9% of the calories as fat, the average American family/adult ranged from 32.4% to 36.5% of calories as fat.
Perhaps it is more meaningful to think about the changes over time for the amounts of fat in our diets that come from refined and/or partially hydrogenated vegetable fats/oils. It is clear that there has been a large increase in this kind of fat in most diets in the U.S. and Canada.
After analyzing hundreds of food samples for trans fatty acids and calculating dietary information, I have concluded that there are many people in the U.S. who consume 20% of the total fat in their diet as trans fatty acids. On average though, 10.9% is the number we came up with when we looked at all the published analyses. In the U.S., typical french fried potatoes have about 40% trans fatty acids, and many popular cookies and crackers range from 30 to 50% trans fatty acids. Doughnuts have about 35 to 40% trans fatty acids. Since these are all high fat foods, someone who eats a lot of them will get a large amount of trans fatty acids. Several years ago we documented nearly 60 grams of trans fatty acids in one typical daily diet.
One major manufacturer of processed foods in the U.S. (and Canada) produces cookies for the U.S. market with half of the fat as trans fat. The Canadian Food Directorate just published analyses that showed trans fat levels in selected foods such as cookies up to 39%, crackers up to 35%, donuts up to 33%, french fries up to 43%, and potato chips up to 40%. The new food labels allow the consumer a "guesstimate" of trans fat in the product.
The discussion of fats and oils was particularly illuminating. The reader in 1966 learned that "[f]ats and oils in foods may be particularly subject to [rancidity] oxidation," especially during storage with resultant "off-flavors and odors that [represent] rancidity." The foods that can be affected in this manner include high fat foods such as "cooking oils, meats, dairy products, eggs, fish, and nuts" as well as foods like bakery products which usually contain added fat. Even vegetables with small amounts of fat could develop flavor problems if the fat became oxidized causing serious flavor problems.
The reader further learned that "[f]ats are composed of molecules of glycerin [glycerol] linked to fatty acids." These fatty acids "may be saturated or unsaturated, terms which refer to the ability of fatty acids to combine with other substances such as oxygen." "Saturated fatty acids are rather stable chemically and account for much of the firmness of fats at room temperatures." "The unsaturated fatty acids ... are softer -- some even liquid at room temperature -- and are much less stable. Hence, these are most subject to attack by oxygen."
But the attack on fats by oxygen can be prevented by antioxidants. These antioxidants are present naturally in the original vegetable oils, but those classes of antioxidants and synergists (which potentiate antioxidants) were generally lost in the refining process "...because of our desire for...vegetable oils that are clear and sparkling..." In this 1966 text, there was no mention of saturated fatty acids in unfavorable terms, and the potential problems of the unsaturated fatty acids were clearly recognized by the writers.
It was evident from published studies of the trans fatty acids that a number of earlier researchers had questioned the biological safety of the trans fatty acids viz a viz their relationship to both cancer and heart disease. In fact, Ancel Keys had originally claimed that the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils with their trans fatty acids were the culprits in heart disease. This was in 1958, and the edible oil industry was very swift in their squelching of that information; they shifted the emphasis to "saturated" fat and started the unwarranted attack on meat and dairy fats. It has taken 30 years for research to get back on track. Now research is being reported on adverse effects from trans related to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, low birth weight, obesity, and immune dysfunction.
Because trans fatty acids disrupt cellular function, they affect many enzymes such as the delta-6 desaturase and consequently interfere with the necessary conversions of both the omega-6 and the omega-3 essential fatty acids to their elongated forms and consequently escalate the adverse effects of essential fatty acid deficiency (this latter effect was shown especially by the work of Dr. Holman and his colleagues at the Hormel Institute at the University of Minnesota).
The fats that humans have consumed for millennia, such as the fats that they added to mixed dishes, were almost always more saturated than they were unsaturated. It was the easily extractable fat or oil, the fat that came from the animal, or, in the case of areas such as the tropics, it was the oil that came from the coconut or the palm fruit that was used in cooking. Sometimes it was one of the very stable oils like olive oil (or sesame paste) that had a lot of built-in antioxidant and wasn't too polyunsaturated.
People didn't really have the ability to extract oil from vegetables like corn, or from many seeds as they do today. However, they got their essential polyunsaturated fatty acids from many of these plants when they were included in the foods they were eating. People used the intact leaf, root, nut, grain or seed along with all its antioxidants in the stews or the porridges that most people ate. This was the way the polyunsaturates were historically consumed. The polyunsaturated fatty acids didn't have to be hydrogenated to protect their integrity and keep them from going rancid because they were consumed in a protected whole-food state.
People on low fat diets historically consumed adequate amounts of essential fatty acids from such foods as grains, vegetables and nuts; and then they made their own saturated fat for the necessary adipose and energy storage. Those people with higher fat intakes in their diets still had about the same amount of essential fatty acids, and ultimately the same amount of saturated fat for storage or as the energy source. Regardless of whether they ate it or made it, the fat in the tissues of our ancestors was relatively saturated and therefore the fatty acid supply to the tissues was predictably saturated. Today with the high levels of partially hydrogenated vegetable and marine oils in the diets of many people, the tissues and organs are faced with a new situation and many researchers have concluded that the presence of the trans fatty acids is causing shifts in favor of chronic disease.
The bottom line is to consume as many whole foods and whole food mixtures as possible. Since we live in a society where other people prepare most of the foods many of us eat, it is important to look for the least processed and the least likely to go rancid when it comes to fats and oils. There is nothing wrong with consuming your essential fatty acids from oils as long as those oils are safely extracted and carefully stored, but a good balance needs to be maintained with sources of the more saturated fats such as the animal tallows and/or dairy fats for those who are not vegetarians or the more saturated fats such as palm or coconut oils for those who are vegetarians.
(Updated 20 November 1997)
Each time this happened, the edible oil industry found various voices willing to help suppress the information. Some university researchers were coopted and several industry white papers were written and widely distributed.
The amounts of trans fatty acids in the foods became known through research done at the University of Maryland beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Again the food industry found willing helpers to write coverup pieces and to allay the concerns of those who wondered what to do. These coverup pieces came from trade associations such as the Margarine Manufacturers Association, the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) the American Soybean Association, public policy organizations such as the Life Sciences Research Office of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (LSRO-FASEB), the American Heart Association, and consumer activist groups such as Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) .
Beginning in 1990, research from the Netherlands and the U.S. has been periodically pointing a critical finger at the widely consumed trans fatty acids. The latest research to be reported comes from Dr. Walter Willett's group at the Harvard School of Public Health, and it was published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine and reviewed by, e.g., the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Back in January/February 1987 and March 1988, CSPI produced pro-trans pieces in the Nutrition Action Healthletter entitled "Hydrogenation: The Food Industry's Wild Card" and "The Truth About Trans - Hydrogenated oils aren't guilty as charged". In the 1987 article, CSPI Research Associate Elaine Blume wrote: "..hydrogenated oils don't pose a dire threat to health" and added that "...it seems unlikely that hydrogenation contributes much to our burden of heart disease..." In the 1988 article, the same author wrote: "All told, the charges against trans fat just don't stand up. And by extension, hydrogenated oils seem relatively innocent."
By 1990, CSPI, still defending "....trans [as] not [being] artery cloggers...", was starting to waver in an article "Trans in Trouble." Only in 1992 did CSPI leap onto the anti-trans parade with a series of revisionist articles (too little too late). Even today, CSPI misses the real science and ignores the difference in the effects of trans fatty acids and saturates, a difference recognized by the Harvard researchers in their newest research. Now, CSPI wants to combine trans and saturates on the label and has petitioned the FDA to legislate that type of labeling. Since the saturates lower the atherogenic marker lipoprotein [a] (Lp[a]) (good news) and trans raise Lp[a] (bad news) in people with already high levels; since the saturates raise HDL (good news) and the trans lower HDL (bad news); and since the Harvard researchers have noted that 2% energy as trans is more atherogenic than 5% energy as saturates, it is clear that the public needs to know how much of each type of fatty acid is in the food. The saturates clearly come out not only different but better.
Mary G. Enig, Ph.D
Mary G. Enig, Ph.D. is an expert of international renown in the field of lipid chemistry. She has headed a number of studies on the content and effects of trans fatty acids in America and Israel, and has successfully challenged government assertions that dietary animal fat causes cancer and heart disease. Recent scientific and media attention on the possible adverse health effects of trans fatty acids has brought increased attention to her work. She is a licensed nutritionist, certified by the Certification Board for Nutrition specialists, a qualified expert witness, nutrition consultant to individuals, industry and state and federal governments, contributing editor to a number of scientific publications, Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and President of the Maryland Nutritionists Association. She is the author of over 60 technical papers and presentations, aswell as a popular lecturer. Dr. Enig is currently working on the exploratory development of an adjunct therapy for HIV/AIDS using complete medium chain saturated fatty acids from whole foods. She is the mother of three children and lives with her husband in Maryland.
There are also many, many pages with information about individual amino acids. These pages can be found linked from one central source -- click here for that source.
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