As always I am trying to learn something from this thread. Can anyone tell me how trans fat is any worse than regular fat like what is in alfredo sauce ets. Many labels show very litle or no trans fat so it does not seem very popular for our legislatures to waste time trying to actually ban it unlike the smoking ban which has so much support.
When I said we all do things that are bad for us, i was referring to the fact that almost everyone I know has a vice. One friend loves ice cream, one pizza, many drink too much on the weekends. Some smoke when they drink and end up doing a whole pack in a few houre. All I'm saying is that the government can not waste it's time trying to legislate health. The governments responsibility is to give its citizens access to the best healthcare so that when illness happens, we can go to the doctor and get well.
Essentially, transfats are a man made chemical alteration of "real fat", that result in no nutritional value. Real fats although unhealthy if eaten in excess do provide nutrituional needs to the body, and are not man-made. Here is an excerpt from wikipedia (
Trans fat is the common name for a type of
unsaturated fat with trans
isomer fatty acid(s). Trans fats may be
monounsaturated or
polyunsaturated.
Most trans fats consumed today are industrially created by partially
hydrogenating plant oils — a process developed in the early 1900s and first commercialized as
Crisco in 1911. The goal of partial hydrogenation is to add hydrogen atoms to unsaturated fats, making them more
saturated. These more saturated fats have a higher
melting point making them attractive for baking, and extending their
shelf-life. Another particular class of trans fats,
vaccenic acid occurs in trace amounts in meat and dairy products from
ruminants.
Unlike other dietary fats, trans fats are neither required nor beneficial for health.
Eating trans fats increases the risk of
coronary heart disease.
For these reasons, health authorities worldwide recommend that consumption of trans fat be reduced to trace amounts. Trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils are generally considered to be more of a health risk than those occurring naturally.
Chemically, trans fats are made of the same building blocks as non-trans fats, but have a different arrangement. In trans fatty acid molecules, the hydrogen atoms bonded to pair(s) of doubly bonded carbon
atoms (characteristic of all unsaturated fats) are in the
trans rather than the
cis arrangement. This results in a straight, rather than kinked, shape for the carbon chain, more like the straight chain of a fully saturated fat.
