Fats can be either bad or good. If you wish to lose weight and keep healthy, you should be aware of trans fats.

This type of fat is unhealthy, raising blood cholesterol and leading to heart disease or even cancer. Trans fats are extremely threatening, as they lower HDL levels, known as the good cholesterol, which protects you against heart attack.

What Are Trans Fats?

Trans fats appear as two types, those that are naturally occurring in certain foods like meat and dairy and artificial varieties that are manmade.The naturally occurring varieties are produced in the stomach of animals, and so foods made from them, such as dairy and steaks contain small amounts of these fats. Trans fatty acids, the artificial varieties are created in factories where hydrogen is added to liquid vegetable oils to turn those oils into solids; mainly this is done to increase shelf life of food.In processed foods, the primary dietary source of trans fats is partially hydrogenated oils, and these should be eliminated from the diet, so check all food labels for this ingredient.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made a preliminary determination in 2013 that partially hydrogenated oils are not Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) in human food.

Sources Of Trans Fats

The two main sources of natural trans fats are mat and milk products.Partially hydrogenated oils are used to improve the texture as well as shelf life by food manufacturers. Much of the trans fat Americans consume is in the form of processed food.

Health Consequences

Trans fats are considered by both doctors and researchers the most threatening type of fat. It’s a real threat to your heart, because they raise bad LDL cholesterol levels and lower good HDL cholesterol levels thereby increasing the risk of heart disease.

Trans Fats In Your Daily Food

Trans fat, which is partially hydrogenated oil, can be found in various processed food products including:Cakes, cookies, pies crackers, and many baked goods have trans fats. Margarine and frozen pizza contain trans fats.

Reading The Food Labels

Many processed boxed foods can contain artificial trans fats, so it’s important to check the ingredients on the label.

In order to see if a product contains trans fats, you should read the list of ingredients. If you read the words ‘partially hydrogenated’, it means that the product contains trans fats. There is no exception. It’s estimated that 40% of supermarket products contain trans fats. According to the FDA, 95% of cookies, 80% of breakfast foods, 75% of chips and many cereals contain trans fats.

Choose Your Fats In A Wise Manner

You should make use of the Nutrition Facts Label in order to reduce trans fats in your daily diet, which might help you decrease the risk of heart disease. Therefore, you should follow some steps:

• Limit consumption of fats to healthy fats, like polyunsaturated and monosaturated varieties. Your best choices in healthy fat foods are avocadoes, walnuts, olive oil, and walnut oil.
• Limit intake of saturated fats as they too contribute to heart disease.
• Limit or eliminate consumption of snack and processed foods and baked goods.
• Eat foods that are lower in fat and higher in dietary fiber such as fruits and vegetables.
• Try steaming, baking, or broiling, because these cooking methods don’t add some extra fat.
• Enjoy nonfat or low fat dairy, especially milk, and Greek Yogurt.