Family and Consumer Sciences
Limit Trans Fats in Your Diet
Recently, the American Heart Association became the first health organization to recommend a specific limit on the amount of trans fats people consume.
Their recommendation— less than 1% of your total calories should come from trans fats. But instead of doggedly counting calories and grams of fat, try something simpler— get in the habit of cooking with healthier oils, and balancing calories consumed with calories burned through exercise. Consumers can know if a food contains trans fat by looking at the ingredient list on the food label. If the ingredient list includes the words “shortening,” “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” or “hydrogenated vegetable oil,” the food contains trans fat. Because ingredients are listed in descending order of predominance, smaller amounts are present when the ingredient is close to the end of the list.
Trans fats, or trans fatty acids are fats found in foods such as vegetable shortening, some margarines, crackers, candies, baked goods, cookies, snack foods, fried foods, salad dressings, and many processed foods. It’s important to know about trans fat because there is a direct, proven relationship between diets high in trans fat content and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels and, therefore, an increased risk of coronary heart disease – a leading cause of death in the US. However, not all fats are bad—polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats (such as olive oil, canola oil, soybean oil, and corn oil) have good effects.
