Short answer. Yes, they are.
What Are Trans Fats?
Trans fats are chemically modified vegetable oils. Also called hydrogenated oils, they are solid at room temperature. The hydrogenation process involves adding a molecule of hydrogen to vegetable oil, solidifying it. Commercial advantages are it’s cheaper to produce than natural saturated fats like lard or butter. It also has a longer shelf life.
History Of Trans Fats
First developed in the nineteenth century, several scientists pioneered research into its properties and uses, most notably Paul Sabatier and Wilhelm Normall. Procter & Gamble acquired patent rights in the US and released the first vegetable shortening product in 1911 called Crisco. P&G successfully marketed Crisco by releasing free cookbooks that included it as an ingredient.
Chemists later added butter flavoring to shortening and created margarine. They promoted margarine as an alternative to butter due to its ease in spreading over bread and its lower cholesterol content. Baked goods such as cookies made with shortening crumble less and have a longer shelf life than butter. Crisco also does not require refrigeration unlike butter. Deep fried foods like french fries whose oils contain shortening have a fluffier texture than those cooked with liquid oils. Don’t believe me? Fry some sliced potatoes in liquid oil versus shortening and see the difference. Fries cooked in oil are more greasy.
Dr. Fred Kummerow
Dr. Fred Kummerow was a gifted scientist who was one of the first to blow the whistle on the dangers of trans fat. He first published his research in the 1950s and lived to the ripe old age of 102. When it comes to longevity he obviously knew what he was talking about.
He was a contemporary of Dr. Ancel Keys who famously promulgated the cholesterol theory of heart disease. Also called the lipid hypothesis, there are still disagreements about it. Although their feuds were epic, Dr. Keys’ ideas were eventually accepted by the majority, and culminated in the development of cholesterol-lowering drugs (statins).
However, Dr. Kummerow had his day when the FDA officially ruled in 2015 that trans fats were not safe and recommended they be removed from the US food supply. Fred was relentless in his quest to expose trans fats and he petitioned the FDA several times. When they did not act he filed suit forcing them to comply. He was serious.
Dr. Kummerow famously fed rats high levels of trans fat and noticed their arteries clogged up with plaque. Subsequently, he discovered 30 days after removing trans fat from their diets that the plaques dissolved.
Of course, humans are not rats and clog removal times vary, but it’s great to know that if we cut unhealthy foods from our diet that our bodies heal themselves. It’s also encouraging that if our arteries get clogged with this stuff we need only stop consuming it and our alkaline blood will break down and remove it without any other intervention.
For more information about Dr. Kummerow’s ideas please see his most famous work entitled, Cholesterol is Not the Culprit. Available at amazon.com through the link below:
Cholesterol Is Not The Culprit
How The Body Removes Trans Fats
A theory of how our blood dissolves trans fat or any other kind of lipid buildup in our blood vessels may be due to the alkalinity of the blood. Normal blood is slightly alkaline at a 7.4 pH. A neutral pH is water, which is at 7 on the pH scale. Anything lower than 7 indicates acidity.
Cleaning household grease requires that we use something alkaline like soap. Regular water does nothing. The most alkaline thing in existence is crystal drain cleaner or sodium hydroxide (lye). With a pH of 13 lye chemically breaks down not just grease but other organic substances rapidly. Lye is so caustic that we cannot let it touch our skin or it will burn right through it. We can take precautions when using but sometimes it's the only way to remove tough clogs.
Foods With Trans Fats
To stay healthy we must completely remove trans fat from our diets. Like toxic heavy metals, there is no minimum safe level of dietary trans fats. They are completely unnecessary and detrimental to our health. Here is a short list of trans fat foods that should be avoided.
-
Shortening
-
Margarine
-
Cookies with cream filling
-
Desserts with cream filling
-
Pie crust
-
French fries
-
Frozen dough products
-
Deep fried foods
-
Baked goods (crackers, chips, and doughnuts)
-
Coffee creamers
-
Frosting
Food labels that address trans fat quantity are misleading too. FDA regulations state that if there is less than 0.5 grams per serving of trans fat in a food product that they can list trans fat as zero. This is absurd. If a product contains 0.4 grams of anything that is definitely not zero. This is unacceptable by any measure. To check food labels for trans fat look for fully or partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredient listing. The “0 grams” of trans fat cannot be relied upon as accurate.
I hope this information provided value to you and I will be posting more about this topic in the future. I wish you the best in your healing journey. Health is wealth. Guard it like treasure.