A trans-bond and trans-gender (and a whole lot of trans- and cis- prefixed things in science) are all using the same root prefix, though in slightly different ways. “Trans-” has more or less come to mean “on the other side of”, “across a barrier”, “opposite to”, “far away from”, or many other things.
In fatty acids, “cis” vs “trans” refers to how carbon atoms in a hydrocarbon chain are arranged on either side of a rigid, “unsaturated” double bond.
Cis- and trans- have been used in chemistry to describe the differences in certain isomers for a long time, and I presume that they have been thought by erudite folks as something of an antonymic pair for a while; Northern Italy before the Romans conquered it was called “Cisalpine Gaul”, for example. It’s just that we have way way way more things that use the trans- prefix in general than the cis-. Besides the previously mentioned examples, and I don’t think I’ve seen cis- used anywhere else, so I can understand a lot of people thinking that it’s something unique to being the opposite of trans- in transgender.
the only fats I use in cooking are butter, goose fat, coconut oil, and olive oil. I keep them all at room temperature and they are fine for months.
It’s exposing the vegetable fats to heat that is the problem. Other than coconut oil, when exposed to heat most vegetable fats rapidly turn into trans fats and see the comments above. You really should try to avoid cooking with vegetable oils. Adding some canola or grape seed oil to a salad is fine, but you don’t want to fry anything in it or add it to a cooked dish.
cis and trans are Latin words meaning “this side of” and “across; over; on the far side of” respectively. These meanings are used in both chemistry and gender-relationships.
Thank you WhyNot. Ignorance Defeated. I now fully comprehend the different types of fats.
I heart Alton Brown so hard. He’s on my Hall Pass list from the husband. Brains are sexy…being able to break things down so simply that even I can understand them is downright HOT! 
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And matters alpine.
Well, yes, but that’s historians borrowing Latin words. In Latin, the words could be applied to just about any geographic feature. For instance, my Latin-English dictionary has Cisrhenanus and Transrhenanus, meaning on this (the Roman) and that side of the Rhine. It also has Transpadanus, “on the far side (north) of the Po”. No Cis- form for that, although they could have used it; it probably wasn’t as commonly used so my dictionary doesn’t have it.
Cisparadise.
Fitzgerald.
My two-week experiment is complete.
I purchased some high-oleic sunflower oil to compare against the soy vegetable oil I had been using. The sunflower oil claims to have 11 grams of monounsaturated fats per 14 gram serving; the soy only has 3 grams.
I heated both oils in a pan until there was a noticeable viscosity change. Not too scientific, but based on the time I suspect both got to approximately the same temperature.
I then smeared the oils on the left and right side of a plate–and waited. The plate was just sitting in my kitchen; no bright sunlight, just indirect. I let it remain this way for two weeks.
I first found that the soy oil, as I had found earlier, was sticky. The sunflower oil was not. I rinsed the plate in the sink using a small amount of soap and light digital scrubbing. Already the results were obvious: most of the soy oil remained, while most of the sunflower oil was washed away. I used more soap and scrubbed with a sponge, and the results were even more clear–virtually no remaining residue of the sunflower oil, while there was quite a lot left of the soy. And the remaining soy was very sticky, almost plastic-like. I haven’t yet removed the remainder.
Not quite science-grade experimentation, but I consider it fairly conclusive nevertheless. The monounsaturated fats definitely do not undergo the same chemical change as the polyunsaturated when exposed to oxygen and/or light.
Could the difference in the two pans be that, when cooking things in butter, you typically use a lower flame/shorter time, whereas when cooking in oil, you are usually frying/nuking at a higher temperature for a longer time? This would increase the degree of cross-linking, pyrolysis, and all-around gunk production.
wasn’t coconut oil a great evil also ? so much that the warm popcorn places(target the movies ect)changed their oil years ago?
Reason I make note of this si a friend got a hold of some and popped us some and it was to die tasting but she said it was heart attack in a box and no one really sells it anymore
This may be part of it, but I think my experiment above demonstrates that the polyunsaturated fats are the dominant factor here. There was no difference in my handling of the two oils, just a difference in the composition.
That went along with the saturated fat hysteria, along with butter, lard, etc. Turns out (we think) that trans fats are really the baddies, and saturated fats aren’t so bad in comparison.
The dishwasher stuff was working without even a brush touching it.
So use it with a brush. Buy the cheap supermarket powder, the one without the enzymes and rinse aid. (not the solid tablets… ) Its only NaOH … lye…
Its better than an enzyme, because it actively converts the fat to soap, which then helps you brush and scrub … to get more NaOH into the remainder of the fat…
Not to be used on Aluminium … because with the scrubbing, you’d eat a whole through it.