I'm not a scientist, so I'll refrain from getting overly technical in my explanation. Trans fats were developed in the early 1900s using a process called hydrogenation. Long story short they came up with things like margarine and Crisco, forever changing the food industry. In the early 1990s, scientists started discovering that maybe (just maybe) trans fats might be pretty bad for us. More and more research started coming in showing this to be true, but even though people started to learn about this, there was no way to tell whether a food contained trans fat. Nutrition labels would simply tell you the amount of total fat, and the amount of that total which was saturated. Then, in 2006, the FDA finally required food labels to distinguish all types of fats found in a product. The public hailed it as a victory for healthy eating. What the FDA tried their best to keep secret (from us, not from the food companies) is that if the amount of trans fat in a serving of food was less than 0.5g it can be reported as zero, even if it's 0.49g. As such, many companies have lessened the amount of trans fat they use so that it's just under 0.5g. Some companies have even simply changed their serving size without actually changing their products. Many of the foods you see which claim to be "trans fat free" are - in fact - not.
Does this really matter though? How bad can they be? What's so bad about consuming trace amounts?
Recent studies have shown that 1 gram of trans fat can be 15 times more likely to lead to Coronary Heart Disease than 1 gram of saturated fat (incase you're in the dark, saturated fat is commonly known as the "bad fat" and the one that will kill you if you eat too much of it). The American Heart Association recommends you consume less than two grams of trans fat per day, and even that figure seems high to many people. Think about it: if you're eating foods with 0.5g per serving, it only takes 4 servings in a day to reach your limit. If you're eating a food that reduced its serving size without the food being changed, you're probably still eating the old serving size.
Trans fat is a poison, and a potent one at that. Luckily, there is a way to avoid them - look at the ingredients list on any foods you eat. If the ingredients contain "partially hydrogenated oils" or "shortening", that means it does still contain "trace amounts" (if you follow the FDA's definitions) of trans fat.
In the few days since I came across this information, we've scoured through everything in our kitchen, removing any offenders. We only came across one in our kitchen, but it came as a surprise to us: Coffeemate Brand coffee creamers. This popular brand of creamer also goes out of its way to advertise being trans fat-free on the front of its label. As such, we've switched to International Delight.
You should go through your kitchens as well. Also, if you still use margarine or butter, I strongly suggest you switch to one of the brands like Smart Balance. It might be a little more expensive than the regular stuff, but it's worth it.
There's little chance the FDA will change this policy anytime soon, so the best thing we can all do is spread the word and do our best to take responsibility for our health. I don't know about you, but even a trace amount of a poison is more than I want.
