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Transfatsby Mirella Levin
See figure 1 above right.
See Figure 2 above right It is recommended that we limit our daily Trans Fat intake. It is suggested that to do so we should limit our Trans Fat intake to less than 1% of our total daily calories. For example, if you need 2,000 calories per day, only 20 of those calories should be from Trans Fats. However, this means that you can only eat less than 2 grams of Trans Fat per day. Whether we can limit ourselves to this extent is uncertain but cutting back on Trans Fats (even if it’s only by a small proportion) will improve your health.
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Transfats (otherwise known as Trans Fatty Acids or partially hydrogenated oils) are unsaturated fatty acids. This means that this particular fatty acid is able to form products by chemical addition. Transfats are most commonly created in an industrial process where hydrogen is added to vegetable oils to make them more solid. This process is called partial hydrogenation. These fats will also lengthen the
Transfats can be found in various different foods. However, the most common ones are fried things such as French fries, pizza dough, baked pastries, cookies and especially margarine, butter and shortening. You can see how much Trans Fats a specific food item has by looking at the “Nutrition Facts Label” (see fig. 1). Another way of determining the Trans Fat content is to look at the ingredients list. However, the words “Trans Fats” are not always listed. They can appear as “partially hydrogenated oils”, “hydrogenated oils” or “shortening”.
