Trans Fats - Useful Or Harmful?

Author: Alexander Bruni Time for reading: ~2 minutes Last Updated: August 08, 2022

In this article, learn more about Trans Fats - Useful Or Harmful?. How do artificial fats damage the cardiovascular system?.

Trans fatty acids are rare in nature, but for industrial purposes they are created artificially - by adding hydrogen to vegetable oils. Hence their other names: " partially hydrogenated oils " or " trans fats ". All three names can be used by the manufacturer on the product label, so the user must be vigilant for all three.

This is because trans fats greatly increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease by increasing blood levels of low-density lipoprotein, the "bad" LDL cholesterol, and lowering levels of high-density lipoprotein, the "good" HDL cholesterol .

The most popular trans fat is margarine . It is prepared by hydrogenating palm or soybean oil or by "enriching" lard with soybean fat. Cooking, in the end, does not matter - all trans fats are harmful to human health and should be avoided.

Products from fast food chains, ready-made pies and snacks, puff pastry and other pasta, salads, chips, corn sticks, vegetable cream, microwave popcorn, chocolates with vegetable oil - all of them contain doses exceeding the times tolerated by the human body daily norms.

According to experts, the consumption of artificial trans fats should not exceed 1% of the total caloric intake for the day. These amounts can be tolerated and expelled from the body without lasting consequences, but any overdose inevitably damages health.

With a diet of 2,000 kcal per day, no more than 20 of them should be derived from trans fats. Thus, the upper limit for trans fats is 2 g per day, and it is recommended that this limit is not reached more than 3-4 times a week.

A portion of french fries of 150 g contains 7 g of trans fat; one chicken doner - about 7-10 g; 1 tbsp. margarine - 7 g; 1 croissant - 2 g.

It is advisable to avoid dry soups and soluble broths - in addition to the addictive monosodium glutamate , they contain huge amounts of trans fats, often exceeding several times the recommended daily limit.

To avoid excessive amounts of harmful fats, it is recommended to cook at home mainly with olive oil and very limited amounts of oil - to avoid margarine and hard oils. Avoid fried foods in restaurants - in addition to being cooked with the cheapest types of trans fats, they often stay in the fryers and after too long heating and frying the fat itself acquires carcinogenic properties , dramatically increasing the risk of colorectal cancer . Semi-finished products such as cupcakes, muffins and other sweets are also made with margarine and it is advisable to avoid them.

Trans Fats - Useful Or Harmful?

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