hydrogenated oils into virtually all baked goods and other junk food. The reasons are economic ones: Unlike butter, olive oil or other natural fats, trans fats have a shelf life from now to Doomsday.
Walter Willett, MD, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, was co-author of a 1993 report on the 85,095 women who were tracked in the Harvard Nurses Study. Women with a high intake of trans fats were one and a half times more likely to develop coronary heart disease than women with a low intake of these so-called " foods " Clearly this was not only due to the deleterious effects of eating junk food. For many people, the real shocker in this study was the statistic that women who ate the equivalent of four or more teaspoons of margarine per day had a sixty-six percent greater risk of heart disease than women who ate little or no margarine. But when it comes to butter, this vast study found no association between its consumption and the probability of contracting heart disease.
Willett ' s report is shocking only if you have not had an eye on the research. Other scientists have demonstrated that while saturated fat( fats that are solid at room temperature, such as butter or the fat marbling a steak) has been reported to have both good and bad effects on cholesterol levels, the effects of trans-fatty acids are purely negative. Research also has shown that lipoprotein( a), one of the more damaging forms of chemical substances in cholesterol, consistently increases as a result of eating trans-fatty acids."
This compelling research has had little effect on the packaged-food industry, but has, at least, persuaded some fast food chains to stop cooking with hydrogenated oils. And the FDA is considering mandating the listing of trans fats on the Nutrition Facts panel of food labels starting in 2002. Then, although foods would still contain these dangerous fats, you could choose to not purchase them. If enough consumers reject these foods, manufacturers would have to change their formulations.
In addition to boycotting junk foods, I strongly urge you to avoid cooking with margarine or vegetable shortening( that white, creamy stuff that comes in a can). Butter, olive oil and lard worked very well for our heart-healthy ancestors. Or if you find it difficult to resume eating saturated fat, use olive, canola or grape seed oil. ==================================================================
Food for Thought
If you ' ve been saturated for years with old journalistic cliches about the terrors of fat and protein and the virtues of carbohydrate, try sinking your teeth into these crunchy little thought nuggets. Your physician might find them revealing as well.
• 1991: A Canadian team substituted meat and dairy protein for carbohydrate in the diets of ten men and women with high cholesterol. The group lowered their total cholesterol by an average of six and a half percent, lowered their average triglycerides by twenty-three percent and raised their HDL cholesterol by an average of twelve percent.
• 1996: The INTERSALT, an international blood pressure study comparing 10,020 men and women in thirty-two countries, found that people with a dietary protein intake of thirty percent above the average had lower blood pressure than people with a lower intake of protein.
• 1997: In a twenty-year follow-up of 832 men tracked in the world-famous Framingham Heart Study, re searchers matched incidence of stroke( there were sixtyone in all) with dietary intake. The men with the highest intake of dietary fat had the fewest strokes; the men with the lowest had the most strokes.
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