Eating Trans Fat

It is suggested that trans-fats affect cardiovascular disease and may cause diabetes, cancer, allergies and other diseases because trans-fats affect changes in cholesterol levels.

Most people consume 25-35 percent of their total daily calorie count from fat; however, only 10 percent should come from saturated fats. There are two different types of trans fat, artificial and naturally occurring. In order to make artificial trans fat, an industrial process adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oil, to make it more solid. This type of trans fat raises the LDL (bad) cholesterol level and lowers the HDL (good) cholesterol levels. This increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, which are the leading killers of both men and women, and is associated with a higher risk of developing type II diabetes. Artificial trans fat doesn’t help the body in any way; however, the one counterexample is naturally occurring trans fat.  Naturally

For decades we were lead to believe that all fats, no matter where they came from, where the work of the devil and if we wanted to stay trim and healthy, we should eliminate all forms of fat from our diets and follow a low-calorie, virtually fat-free diet on a regular basis. Time went by, researchers conducted various, well, research, and discovered that perhaps SOME fats were ok.

Trans-Fats are a type of unsaturated fat that occur in nature, margarine, snack foods, packaged baked goods, and fried fast food. There are two main types of trans-fats, Naturally occurring and Artificial. Naturally occurring trans-fats mostly come from animals. These Trans-fats are produced in the gut of animals. When those animals are produced into foods, the new foods have contracted the trans-fats that were produced. Artificial trans-fats are created in an industrialized process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetables oils to make them more solid. Either way you can find trans-fats in most processed foods and naturally in meat and dairy products

The FDA is doing this because of the bad implications trans-fat can have on a person’s health and they want to help improve it. The FDA in 2013 declared that trans-fat is no longer “generally recognized as safe.” That is scary to think about, considering how widely trans-fats are being used and how long we as a population have been consuming them. According to FDA.gov, trans-fat can build up the amount of plaque in arteries and increase someone’s risk for coronary heart disease. According to Reuters.com, the FDA mentions that “reducing the use of trans-fats could prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths from heart disease a

This is a definite win for the health of Americans, because trans fats have been proven to raise bad cholesterol, known as LDL, and lower good cholesterol, known as HDL. These are the factors that contribute to the risk of developing heart disease, as well as Type 2 diabetes.

Recently the federal government passed a law that, “requires restaurant chains with 20 or more outlets to disclose calorie counts on their food items and supply information on how many calories a healthy person should eat in a day” (Rosenbloom). By doing this it is helping to expose the nutritional information allowing the American people to be aware of what they are eating; if it is healthy or unhealthy. Many wonder if people make good decisions when it comes to which food choices they consume. People who support this new federal law believe that, “even if menu labeling does not inspire consumers to eat better, they should be told what they are putting in their mouths” (Rosenbloom). Even though the menu items are labeled it does not matter to those people that overlook it, because those people consume it

So, therefore, some claim that the only acceptable method to regulated food with labels. Besides “Obesity is a serious health problem, but government regulation is not the way to solve it.” (Marlow, Abdukadirov 2015). “Government paternalism is a flawed approach that relies on interventions that have poor checks and balances for their effectiveness.” (Marlow,

In our country, we have been faced with growing health issues and problems. Some of the problems that we have been facing include: high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and obesity. A big question that most people have is “Where do these health issues come from?” Its simple, have you ever heard the saying, “You are what you eat?” Well basically that is true. Most food industries had decided to cut out fat in foods so that it wouldn’t be “fattening.” Well, when you take out the fat in foods, it doesn’t taste very good. So in order to keep the sweet flavor in foods, other harmful chemicals and artificial flavoring and sweeteners have been added to foods so that people will continue to buy their products. The food industry in the U.S. in 2014 is worth approximately $5.27 trillion dollars and is on the rise towards $6 trillion dollars. According to the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, the average expenditure for a low-cost meal plan for a

The same research also discovered that these customers, on average, consume 400 calories fewer than they did without their meal's nutritional information. That means that out of the 33% of Americans that consume their calories away from home, 8% of those people will, on average, consume 400 calories less than what they did before. In other words, 8% of Americans will start to live a healthier lifestyle. It may not be what the number we hoped for, but it's a start. There may be one countermeasure to this otherwise incredible idea. Food labeling menu choices could become a nuisance to restaurants. Most of the time, restaurants use ingredients that have a high fat content in their recipes. If food labeling were to become a law, menu choices would have to be replaced with healthier options. That would take time and possibly decrease a restaurant's business. However, this would only be a temporary. As soon as restaurants start serving healthier options, business would boom, and people will become healthier. The governments goal would be

Once dietary fat was "identified" as the chief culprit in heart disease -- a huge case of mistaken identity in my opinion -- food manufacturers sprang into

In the United State of America, fast food is the king of foods. In our daily lives, we are so busy that we resort to purchasing food that is not too healthy. Fast-food restaurants like McDonalds, sell products that are enriched with trans fats. An issue with trans fats, they have been proven to cause health concerns. However, According to sciencedaily.com, an Alberta researcher Flora Wang stated not all trans fats are bad for you. As a matter a fact, certain trans fats are actually good for your body. Flora Wang promoted that trans vaccenic acid, which is found in trans fat, help the body by decrease the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. After reading the article, I found that Flora did not move her research past rats and never

Eating too much fat can cause health problems. But even in moderation, some fats are healthier than others. Now studies suggest that synthetic trans fats a type made by adding extra hydrogen atoms to the chain-like molecules of vegetable oil can act like a dietary villain. Doctors once thought trans fats might be better for health than those found in meats and dairy. And because trans fats are cheap, food companies were eager to substitute them in foods. Scientists slowly began to realize that artificial trans fats were no healthier than butter or other animal fats. They might even actually be worse for health. Fats help create a fluffy pastry and moist taste. Until in the early 1900s those fats usually came from animals. All fats are made

Research has shown that the consumption of trans-fatty acids causes an increase in blood levels of inflammatory markers, which means they are foods that create inflammation in the arteries and blood vessels. This is a cause of age-related heart diseases like atherosclerosis. There is also a link between consumption of trans-fatty acids and various kinds of cancer.

In this sense, the general assumption that high fat diet leads to CHD does not make sense, because consuming some types of fat leads to increase in the LDL level, while some types of fat increase the level of HDL in the bloodstream. For instance, saturated fats that are rich in animal are known to be responsible for increasing the high level of LDL. Trans-fat, which is in most of processed food, is even more responsible for causing high level of LDL concentration. On the other hand, polyunsaturated, as well as monounsaturated fats are known to increase the level of HDL. Therefore, it can be said that although fat is responsible for increasing the risk of CHD to some extent, ‘high fat’ in general does not have massive impact on causing CHD. For instance, replacing saturated fat consumption with carbohydrate does not decrease the chance of getting CHD because carbohydrate eventually leads to increasing the LDL level. However, replacing saturated fat or trans-fat with unsaturated fat may decrease the chance of getting CHD, as it increases the level of HDL that takes LDL back to the liver so that it is broken