Carbs and trans fats: big deal or hype?

[Leaper]

I was flipping through one of the "Eat This, Not That!" books at the bookstore, and every page made such a big hysterical screaming deal out of every carb and every point of trans fats that I felt like eating a big margarine sandwich (with extra bread) just to spite them.

Is it just following Yet Another Diet Fad <tm>, or is this a case of the hype obscuring a real concern?

[Harriet the Spry]

Well, one difference is that you pretty much need some carbs, but you will be perfectly fine with no trans fats at all. Since trans fats can be replaced with other types of fats that are not quite as bad, they stand a chance of becoming a thing of the past.

[BrandonR]

Trans fat is most certainly not a good thing. There's no redeeming qualities of them whatsoever.

[twickster]

I recently interviewed the head of a new preventive cardiology program at Temple University Hospital -- she's against 'em. They raise cholesterol (clogging your arteries and leading to heart disease) and are pretty damn dangerous. You need a certain amount of fat in your diet (cell health, skin elasticity, certain nutrients), but should get it from fats that are liquid at room temperature. Fats that are naturally solid -- butter, fat from meat, etc. -- will raise your bad cholesterol. Trans fats -- which are artificially made to be solid for the convenience of food manufacturers -- will not only raise your bad cholesterol but lower your good cholesterol.

Bad stuff, avoid it. There's no way in hell they're going to turn around later and say "oops, they're really not that bad for you."

[SenorBeef]

There's not really a point to avoiding carbs unless you're specifically attempting to minimize your carb intake far below normal as part of a low carb diet. Otherwise they're going to be the primary macronutrient of your diet. It's valuable to cut them in the same way that it's valuable for most people just to eat less or cut calories generally. It's good to avoid empty carbs in general but that's very difficult - pretty much all our food now has corn syrup as one of the top 5 ingredients it seems - instead of making quality food they just sweeten everything excessively.

Trans fats are some nasty stuff. We're going to end up taking many years off a lot of people's lives to save a buck in food manufacturing.

[Apocalypso]

Looks like trans fats are (hopefully on their way out). There's been a lot of attention called to them recently, and some Big Food is starting to replace it now that everyone's screaming about it. Good riddance.

I predict the next trans fats will be high fructose corn syrup. Everyone and their brother is down on the stuff, and it's in nearly everything.

[Equipoise]

Originally Posted by Leaper

Is it just following Yet Another Diet Fad <tm>, or is this a case of the hype obscuring a real concern?

Regarding carbs, anyone who has diabetes should avoid carbs as much as possible. I had a terrible problem trying to control my blood sugar numbers, plus I had high blood pressure, and being on the "balanced" low-fat, low-calorie diet, plus medication for both conditions, did nothing to help. In desperation, I switched to an ultra low-carb diet and immediately my blood sugar and blood pressure numbers normalized. Within a few weeks my doctor took me off the blood pressure medicine that I'd been taking for years (and was told I'd be on for the rest of my life). Soon after that he halved my diabetes medicine. My regular doctor and endoctrinologist are both very happy and approve.

I've been eating this way for two years and my blood sugar and blood pressure are both completely normal, and have been the entire time.

It's a damned boring way to eat, and you have to like meat, but the way I look at it, I had all those years of being able to eat whatever I wanted, and being restricted now is worth it, much better being bored than the damage caused by diabetes and high blood pressure.

Every diabetic has to find their own path, and that was mine.

Edit to add, it's become pretty fashionable to bash low-carb, mostly because it was a fashionable fad diet for a while. It is a good way to lose a lot of weight, but some of us eat that way for our health too.

[Chronos]

The thing with trans fats (AKA partially hydrogenated fats) is, they were developed to replace saturated fats, which everyone knew are bad for you. But in general, solid naturally-occurring fats are saturated, and there are some purposes for which you need a solid fat for some recipe or another to come out right. So to replace the unhealthy saturated fats that folks were using in those recipes, they developed trans fats (which are very rare in nature), which are unsaturated but nonetheless have similar physical properties to saturated fats (including being solid at room temperature).

Except that now it turns out that trans fats are even worse than the saturated fats they were intended to replace. This is an easy enough problem to solve: Just revert to the saturated fats that everyone used to use, and there's no reason any more to put trans fats in anything. They're still not good for you, so moderation is still necessary, but at least they aren't as bad as the trans ones.

[WarmNPrickly]

I think as far as carbs are conserned, it's good to cut them out the same way it's good to cut any calorie. I think there was a study that compared the efficacy of low-carb diets to low fat diets and they all worked out the same. The main issue is cutting calories. (Special dietary requirements being the exception.)

Trans-fats are unnatural and have no redeaming value. The thing that upsets me most, is the way companies can get away with saying their product is trans-fat free when it is not. If it contains partially hydrogenated anything in the ingredients, then it has trans-fats.

[elfkin477]

Originally Posted by Apocalypso

I predict the next trans fats will be high fructose corn syrup. Everyone and their brother is down on the stuff, and it's in nearly everything.

Good. Not only is it making people fat, it came out a little over a month ago that a high percentage of it contains mercury too.

[WarmNPrickly]

How much mercury?

[Nametag]

Originally Posted by Chronos

The thing with trans fats (AKA partially hydrogenated fats) is, they were developed to replace saturated fats, which everyone knew are bad for you. But in general, solid naturally-occurring fats are saturated, and there are some purposes for which you need a solid fat for some recipe or another to come out right. So to replace the unhealthy saturated fats that folks were using in those recipes, they developed trans fats (which are very rare in nature), which are unsaturated but nonetheless have similar physical properties to saturated fats (including being solid at room temperature).

Except that now it turns out that trans fats are even worse than the saturated fats they were intended to replace. This is an easy enough problem to solve: Just revert to the saturated fats that everyone used to use, and there's no reason any more to put trans fats in anything. They're still not good for you, so moderation is still necessary, but at least they aren't as bad as the trans ones.

Chronos, you're one of the best-informed and most respected posters on the SDMB, but this is just wrong. While partially hydrogenated fats were marketed as a healthy substitute for saturated fats, they were originally developed as an easy-to-spread alternative to fully hydrogenated fats, themselves a cheaper and more stable replacement for animal fats, tropical oils, and butter. Furthermore, trans fats are incidental to hydrogenation; they weren't "developed" for any purpose, they're a natural consequence of the process unless you select catalysts that preferentially produce cis fats. This is what's being done -- fully saturated fats are harder to work with, and it's actually more profitable to use the more expensive process than to abandon the wide range of well established products and processes that use partially hydrogenated fats.

[Nametag]

Originally Posted by WarmNPrickly

Trans-fats are unnatural and have no redeaming value. The thing that upsets me most, is the way companies can get away with saying their product is trans-fat free when it is not. If it contains partially hydrogenated anything in the ingredients, then it has trans-fats.

(Bolding Mine). This statement is not true. While it's certainly possible for a manufacturer to lie about their trans fats, partially hydrogenated fats can be prepared without trans fats by the simple substitution of a selective catalyst into the process. It's not actually being done yet, and not 100% trans-free (note: this is a correction to my statement in the previous post), but regulation of temperature and pressure can also minimize trans fat, and blending with fully hydrogenated fats and regular oils can drop the level of trans fat to less than 1%.

Naturally, polyunsaturated vegetable oil is best when it's otherwise suitable, and naturally, products reformulated to eliminate partially hydrogenated fats are best for avoiding trans fats altogether (Crisco, for instance, is now a blend of hard shortening and vegetable oil). But let's get our facts straight and avoid hysteria.

[Nametag]

Originally Posted by elfkin477

Good. Not only is it making people fat, it came out a little over a month ago that a high percentage of it contains mercury too.

For those not hitting the link, there's been a finding that some HFCS contains detectable levels of mercury; a better writeup is here: specifically,

High fructose corn syrup samples were collected from three different manufacturers and analyzed for total mercury. The samples were found to contain levels of mercury ranging from below a detection limit of 0.005 to 0.570 micrograms mercury per gram of high fructose corn syrup

Mercury was detected in nine of the twenty samples analyzed (Table 1). Of ten samples from manufacturer "A", nine were below the 0.005 μg mercury/g sample detection limit with the sole exception being a sample that was 0.012 μg mercury/g HFCS. Of the remaining ten samples from two other manufacturers, two were below the detection limit and the mercury content of the other eight samples ranged from 0.065 μg to 0.570 μg mercury/g HFCS

The US allowable level of mercury in fish, for sake of comparison, is 1.0 μg/g; the limit in drinking water is 0.002 μg/g. Mercury is used to produce "caustic soda" (NaOH), which is used to adjust the pH of corn syrup during production. Modern factories do not use mercury for this purpose, and I expect that now that this research is out, soon no product made with mercury cell technology will be permitted to be sold as "food-grade."

[mr. jp]

Originally Posted by SenorBeef

There's not really a point to avoiding carbs unless you're specifically attempting to minimize your carb intake far below normal as part of a low carb diet. .

And even then, there isn't really a point to it.

[SenorBeef]

Originally Posted by mr. jp

And even then, there isn't really a point to it.

Sure there is - weight loss, blood sugar control, and cardiovascular health - do you want to turn this into a debate?

[mr. jp]

Originally Posted by SenorBeef

Sure there is - weight loss

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/9/859

[SenorBeef]

None of those tests attempted to test a minimal carb diet. The lowest had 35% of calories from carbs - way too much to see most of the benefit from a low carb diet. I agree that shifting around your macronutrients to that degree probably doesn't make a significant difference.

I'd like to see data from a diet at around 0-3% calories from carbs.

[mr. jp]

Originally Posted by SenorBeef

None of those tests attempted to test a minimal carb diet. The lowest had 35% of calories from carbs - way too much to see most of the benefit from a low carb diet. I agree that shifting around your macronutrients to that degree probably doesn't make a significant difference.

I'd like to see data from a diet at around 0-3% calories from carbs.

Ah, ok.

[SenorBeef]

I'm actually interested in seeing scientific studies of that. Whenever they tend to compare low carb and high carb diets, they shift macronutrients around a decent bit but never to any extreme. Low carb diet proponents generally don't recommend a diet with anywhere near 30% calories from carbs, so I don't understand why that seems to be the low end on these tests. All I have is personal/anecdotal evidence to work with - I'd like to see a study that went further and tested something like 65/30/5 as a mix.

I don't understand why they won't - as I understand it, the few parts of the body that require glucose to operate can get it from synthesized sources and there's no known danger to an otherwise healthy person of prolonged carbohydrate deprivation.

But that's what I meant when I said "there's not really a point to avoiding carbs unless..." - cutting them from 60% to 40% in your diet probably won't do any good.

[mr. jp]

Yeah, I agree. It baffles me that there aren't more studies about this, if you consider how important it is to how many people.

[twickster]

Originally Posted by WarmNPrickly

Trans-fats are unnatural and have no redeaming value. The thing that upsets me most, is the way companies can get away with saying their product is trans-fat free when it is not. If it contains partially hydrogenated anything in the ingredients, then it has trans-fats.

The loophole is that "less than 0.5 gram/serving" is considered "trans-fat-free" by the FDA. How manufacturers dive through that loophole is by defining "a serving" as something way under what most people would actually eat in one sitting -- "one cookie," "5 chips," etc.

Read labels carefully -- if it says "no trans fats," look at the serving size -- is it realistic? -- and read the ingredients list -- as WarmNPrickly says, if "partially hydrogenated anything" is in the ingredients, give it a pass.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Except that now it turns out that trans fats are even worse than the saturated fats they were intended to replace. This is an easy enough problem to solve: Just revert to the saturated fats that everyone used to use, and there's no reason any more to put trans fats in anything. They're still not good for you, so moderation is still necessary, but at least they aren't as bad as the trans ones.

So, given the current information on trans fats, is it better to use real butter or lard instead of margarine or vegetable shortning when you need solid fats?

[twickster]

Originally Posted by Superfluous Parentheses

So, given the current information on trans fats, is it better to use real butter or lard instead of margarine or vegetable shortning when you need solid fats?

In general, yes.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

Originally Posted by twickster

In general, yes.

That's good, since I always get funny looks from my parents for cooking with butter instead of margarine (which doesn't even work as well for certain recipes).

I blame the 70s

[twickster]

Keep in mind it doesn't make butter (which is all I keep in the house, also) good -- just "less bad."

[Superfluous Parentheses]

Originally Posted by twickster

Keep in mind it doesn't make butter (which is all I keep in the house, also) good -- just "less bad."

I know. But you still need butter for pie crusts and bechamel sauce

[Bill Door]

The only fats I cook with or eat olive oil, butter, and lard. My cholesterol is in an excellent range (164 ug/dl, with HDL over 50 ug/dl) despite the fact that I eat around 20 eggs a week, and 65% of my calories come from fat.

It used to be high back in my margarine days, but I was eating a lot more carbs then, and it may be connected to that. Right now probably 15% of my calories comes from carbohydrates.

[MichaelQReilly]

As is the case with all things health related, I think that what is best for people diet-wise depends on the person.

For example, I'm not diabetic, but I have a history of diabetes in my family. Simply put, my body does not handle sugar (and thus carbs) very well. I'm not overweight by any means (6' 195), but I tend to develop a spare tire over time if I eat normally. If I want to get rid of it, all I have to do is cut out carbs and the weight falls off me, I can easily drop 10 pounds in 2 weeks if I wanted to.

On the other hand, my best friend's wife is a former all-state soccer player and has an obviously athletic build. From what I've seen, she eats close to 100% carbs. After her pregnancy she wanted to lose 5 or so pounds and decided to do the low carb diet. Her and my friend followed it religiously for well over a month and it had zero impact on her.

Only two anecdotes I know, but I think this reflects my theory, which is that some people's bodies just don't process sugar well. If you are one of those people, carbs can make a huge difference for you. If you aren't, reducing them won't make any difference than what would occur from just cutting your diet in general.

Finally, fairly recently there was a long term scientific study that concluded that low-carb diets are actually better for a person's heart than traditional low-fat diets. I think this is it: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/359/3/229

[DrDeth]

Originally Posted by Superfluous Parentheses

So, given the current information on trans fats, is it better to use real butter or lard instead of margarine or vegetable shortning when you need solid fats?

In moderation. But note there are butter/canola or olive oil spreads that taste pretty good and are somewhat better (apparently) than straight butter. Some margarines are made with canola oil, etc, and are thus fairly "heart-smart".

Of course, they are all quite high in fat, so use in moderation.

[WarmNPrickly]

Originally Posted by Nametag

(Bolding Mine). This statement is not true. While it's certainly possible for a manufacturer to lie about their trans fats, partially hydrogenated fats can be prepared without trans fats by the simple substitution of a selective catalyst into the process. It's not actually being done yet, and not 100% trans-free (note: this is a correction to my statement in the previous post), but regulation of temperature and pressure can also minimize trans fat, and blending with fully hydrogenated fats and regular oils can drop the level of trans fat to less than 1%.

Naturally, polyunsaturated vegetable oil is best when it's otherwise suitable, and naturally, products reformulated to eliminate partially hydrogenated fats are best for avoiding trans fats altogether (Crisco, for instance, is now a blend of hard shortening and vegetable oil). But let's get our facts straight and avoid hysteria.

I'd be interested to find what catalysts are used that don't produce trans-fats. Once the first hydrogen is added, the bond can rotate, and since each step is microscopically reversible it can lose a hydrogen just as well. Typically, this process can be controlled by thermodynamically making the reverse process unfavorable, but it still can't be completely inhibited.

I agree that fully hydrogenating vegetable oil then mixing with vegetable oil should eliminate the problem, but what are they calling fully hydrogenated oil? There are diminishing returns on the energy required to hydrogenate something.

Until businesses are required to tell us how much trans-fats are in their products, they have no reason to change. 0.5 g/serving is way to high a limit. That limit should be around 0.01 g/serving. They can continue producing products as they are, but the public has a right to make informed decisions about the products they use.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

Originally Posted by DrDeth

In moderation. But note there are butter/canola or olive oil spreads that taste pretty good and are somewhat better (apparently) than straight butter. Some margarines are made with canola oil, etc, and are thus fairly "heart-smart".

I don't eat spreads on bread. I just use the butter for cooking when needed (otherwise I use most olive oil).

[Critical1]

Originally Posted by twickster

The loophole is that "less than 0.5 gram/serving" is considered "trans-fat-free" by the FDA. How manufacturers dive through that loophole is by defining "a serving" as something way under what most people would actually eat in one sitting -- "one cookie," "5 chips," etc.

Read labels carefully -- if it says "no trans fats," look at the serving size

seriously.

there are some cookies out there, chocolate devils food cake or something like that claiming to be fat free...serving size = one cookie. and no they aint big.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by Leaper

I was flipping through one of the "Eat This, Not That!" books at the bookstore, and every page made such a big hysterical screaming deal out of every carb and every point of trans fats that I felt like eating a big margarine sandwich (with extra bread) just to spite them.

Is it just following Yet Another Diet Fad <tm>, or is this a case of the hype obscuring a real concern?

no, margarine and white sugar on white fuffy wonder bread [one of the things available in the public school lunches was always white bread with margarine spread between the 2 slices .... and one person I went to school with the year I was there used to steal the sugar packets from the diner and bring them in and make sugar sandwiches .... BLARGH!]

about the only thing you could do to make it worse is figure out how to add artificial colors and preservatives ... maybe some sort of sodium boost ... hm, slim jims?

[Chronos]

Quoth Nametag:

Chronos, you're one of the best-informed and most respected posters on the SDMB, but this is just wrong.

I'm certainly no expert on the subject, and most of what I know about it comes from one or two books. It's quite possible that I misinterpreted those books; I'll double-check them this evening and report back.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by Superfluous Parentheses

I don't eat spreads on bread. I just use the butter for cooking when needed (otherwise I use most olive oil).

actually apple or pumpkin 'butter' on toast or english muffins gives me a fruit exchange with no fat, and is nummy, especially since i like to spice them when i make them with a dash of 'pumpkin pie spice' [cinnamon, nutmeg and clove] and no added sugar just what is inherent in the fruit.

[panache45]

Originally Posted by Equipoise

Regarding carbs, anyone who has diabetes should avoid carbs as much as possible. I had a terrible problem trying to control my blood sugar numbers, plus I had high blood pressure, and being on the "balanced" low-fat, low-calorie diet, plus medication for both conditions, did nothing to help. In desperation, I switched to an ultra low-carb diet and immediately my blood sugar and blood pressure numbers normalized. Within a few weeks my doctor took me off the blood pressure medicine that I'd been taking for years (and was told I'd be on for the rest of my life). Soon after that he halved my diabetes medicine. My regular doctor and endoctrinologist are both very happy and approve.

I've been eating this way for two years and my blood sugar and blood pressure are both completely normal, and have been the entire time.

It's a damned boring way to eat, and you have to like meat, but the way I look at it, I had all those years of being able to eat whatever I wanted, and being restricted now is worth it, much better being bored than the damage caused by diabetes and high blood pressure.

Every diabetic has to find their own path, and that was mine.

Edit to add, it's become pretty fashionable to bash low-carb, mostly because it was a fashionable fad diet for a while. It is a good way to lose a lot of weight, but some of us eat that way for our health too.

I'm diabetic too, and have had the same experience. But it's important to point out that not all carbs are created equal. I eat low-GI carbs exclusively, and try to avoid the high-GI carbs like sugar, flour, potatoes and rice.