Virtually everyone has eaten a whole lot of foods, over the years, that contain trans fats. I’m wondering whether these substances pass through the body, after doing their dirty work, or remain in the body, along with our stored fat. And if they do remain, do they continue to do harm? IOW, if I eliminate trans fats from my diet, will their effects continue, or stop, or will the body somehow undo the damage?
Ironically, trans-fats replaced “unhealthy” foods like butter and lard or, beef tallow. Another interesting oil is rapeseed, aka “canola”, which is a derivative of the paint industry, it rapidly turns to varnish. I’ll stick with butter and olive oil, thanks!
No fat of any kind remains in the body. All fats of every kind are broken down by digestion into component parts. It is those components which are used by the body in a variety of ways, including being stored as fats.
The problem with trans fats is that the components serve to raise LDL cholesterol levels.
Lowering LDL cholesterol levels is not simply a matter of taking trans fats out of the diet. Removing saturated fats is also necessary, along with regular exercise and losing excess weight. For people who are genetically disposed to higher cholesterol, medicines like the statin drugs may be necessary.
The body, food, digestion, and its workings are a system. One thing seldom allows for major changes. You have to make systematic changes before the system as a whole changes.
Not eating trans fats probably has the benefit of not making things worse, rather than making things better. But you don’t want to say much more than that.
Don’t be spreading nonsense. Canola oil can be used in the making of industrial varnish, but so can many other natural oils that nobody thinks twice about. It certainly doesn’t turn to varnish either inside or outside the body. :smack:
That is somewhat misleading: according to here digestion only breaks down triglycerides into their component fatty acids. As the OP was talking about one specific type of fatty acid (trans fats), it isn’t correct to say that digestion breaks that down.
I guess the answer of what happens to a trans fat depends on what your body wants to do with it. I think any fat can be slapped back onto a triglyceride and stored as fat or broken down into energy. Some fats can be used to make certain types of body chemicals. I am not aware of what metabolic pathways are available to trans fats.
Do we think once about cooking with them though, is the question. Coconut and palm kernel oils are considered undesirable from other aspects. What other natural oils are used in paints and varnish that we cook with?
It tends to leave a near indestructible deposit on pans and cookware, for what that’s worth, and it certainly smells like paint when it becomes oxidized. It’s very cheap, so it’s tending to replace more expensive corn or soybean oils, or the aformentioned trans-fats.
Huh? Water is used in some paints. Does that mean we shouldn’t cook with water? Paints and varnish have more in them than just an oil carrier; the fact that a food product also happens to have use in another industry doesn’t say anything about the desirability of that food product.
That’s almost as silly as the comment that something we consume regularly is “one molecule away from being plastic” (I forget what that something is, but I’m sure someone can chime in with what I am referring to).
Hell, sugar could qualify for this honor. Glucose, linked together in the right sort of chain, becomes cellulose… which is what cellophane and rayon is made out of.
Does anyone know what differences, if anything, there is between the metabolism of cis- fatty acids versus the trans- variety? I have this vague impression that the normal metabolic pathways that break down natural fats has a hard time with trans fats.
No, water is fine.
The point is that substances are either safe for eating or not based on their properties, not what other things we can use them for. Canola oil is a safe cooking oil because it has been shown to be safe.
“An initial challenge for the Canola Council of Canada was the fact that rapeseed was never given GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status by the US Food and Drug Administration. A change in regulation would be necessary before canola could be marketed in the US.4 Just how this was done has not been revealed, but GRAS status was granted in 1985, for which, it is rumored, the Canadian government spent $50 million to obtain.”
Well, maybe, maybe not? I found that statement referencing Canola/Rapeseed oil here and it seems fairly objective:
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/conditioncardioself/1042/
Your link doesn’t appear to say that. It says the converse: that all triacylglycerols are broken down to component fatty acids. This does not limit non-triacylglycerols from being broken down. Could you show me anywhere in that page that it specifically says that other fats are not broken down to fatty acids (or monoacylglycerols) before absorption into the bloodstream?
Wow. That’s a hard question. I know! We can go to your own link for the answer.
:rolleyes:
Well, that is beside the point. The point is that fatty acids are transported in the bloodstream via lipoproteins. Digestion doesn’t break down fatty acids any further. And trans-fat refers to a kind of fatty acid, not a kind of triglyceride, diglyceride, or phospholipd. All could contain 1 or more trans fatty acids and be considered “trans fats” by the common definition of the word. The fact that digestion hydrolyzes the trans fatty acids off the glycerol molecule doesn’t make them somehow into non-trans fats.
Are we even talking about the same thing?
Let’s get some basic definitions down. Digestion is the process by which complex sugars and carbohydrates are broken down to simple sugars; proteins are broken down to amino acids; and fats are broken down to fatty acids. Fatty acids are the breakdown product of digestion by definition.
Let’s define fats and trans fats:
From Wiki:
So while a particular type of trans fatty acid group is required, the trans fat that is referred to in every article on the subject is a larger fat molecule that must be broken down by digestion.
My point, in response to the OP, is that fat storage in the body is not the issue, whether the original breakdown products of digestion are trans fatty acid groups or not. It is the damage that these groups down that is the issue.
Can we agree on that much? If so, could you explain what your point is? If we’re not agreed on that, please define your terms because I don’t understand them.
Oh, c’mon! Read for content - Walnut oil hasn’t exactly taken over the cooking oil industry. Palm oil and tallow are considered verboten as well, again for health reasons. They aren’t used for paint, but as industrial lubricants. Good try, though!
Butter and olive oil as decent fats for cooking - their taste is simply unmatched, which ought to be good enough for most people. The problem is they are expensive, and not near enough to go around in any industrial food production sense.
No, but that is beside the point. The point is that despite the fact that it has industrial uses, it is perfectly safe to eat. And flax seed oil is considered especially healthy because of the proportionally larger amount of omega 6 fatty acids it contains.
Discouraged, but not verboten. And it has nothing to do with their industrial uses. You seem to have a hard time distinguishing between correlation and causation.
Oh come on, canola oil is safe. Period. If it wasn’t you’d think some one would have put out a more compelling study or argument by now and the oil wouldn’t be as widely used and accepted.
And substituting butter or olive oil for canola oil is simply, not an option in most cases. Both usually have lower smoke points which make canola oil the best candidate in frying for most applications.
I’d agree, but I was taking issue with what you said, not what you are now saying you meant. You said that no trans fats are stored in the body, which is not true. While digestion hydrolyzes the fatty acids off the triglyceride, when the fats are eventually stored they are re-esterified back into a triglyceride. The thing that makes a trans fat, the trans conformation around a double bond in the long carbon chain of the fatty acid molecule, is unaffected by digestion. The trans-fattyness, if you will, never goes away until the fat molecule is completely metabolized for energy.
It is picky, I know, and somewhat off-topic. Part of the difficulty is the assumption made in the question that trans fats are dangerous simply by existing stored in the body. I don’t think that is correct. The most amount of damage they do is while they are being transported through the blood as part of lipoprotein complexes.
This is a problem that comes up frequently. Too many times the popular term for something duplicates or conflicts with the jargonized term. My preference is to answer the question as asked, using the popular term and let the technicalities emerge if necessary. Otherwise the next thousand times they see the term use “wrongly” but popularly they are more likely to misunderstand that usage.
It’s a fine line to walk. Almost every medical and science thread teeters between too little jargon and too much. You just have to hope that people get the right message in the end.
Back on the trans fat issue I got to thinking about food products that list trans fat in their nutritional facts. I looked at all kinds of food in my kitchen but unfortunately/fortunately, came up empty handed… That was until I was at my mother’s house where she had a bag of Krispy Kreme Kruellers(?)… And the trans fat was 5g just for 2 tiny donut twists!
Sheesh where’s the public outcry over KK?
And if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle. Again, nice try - but “industrial uses” isn’t what is at issue here.