Nutrition - Are You Poisoning Yourself With What You Eat?

I just received the results of my annual physical exam the other day. The doctor said that my cholesterol was too high. It was lower last year by 10 points! How can it be too high this year? Anyway he wanted to put me on drugs to get it lower.

Now I've been reading a lot lately about cholesterol, what causes it, and how best to lower it. I decided I would try to find a way to lower it without the drugs. I knew that the drugs could possibly cause liver damage. GREAT, not what I wanted.

Have you noticed all the side effects of almost any drug on the market? Scares me into trying to learn all I can and to find alternatives to the drugs.

My research led me to trans fats. Just what are trans fats and where do they come from. Aren't trans fats in any form bad for you?

There is a difference between good trans fats and bad trans fats. The bad trans fats have been shown to cause heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but there is some proof that the good trans fat can aid you in getting a leaner body, muscle building, and cancer determent.

Over the last few years it has been stated in the news just how bad synthetic trans fats are for your health. These substances are some of the most offensive food additives and are found in the majority of all processed and fast foods on the market these days.

In their degree of danger to your health, man-made trans fats are as bad as smoking. They are one of the major factors for the outbreak of heart disease since about the 1950's.

The FDA has required that food manufacturers list the grams of trans fat on all nutrition labels. You now have an easier way to avoid packages with trans fat included in them.

I wanted to clear up some things, specifically about bad trans fats vs. good trans fats, with all of the talk about trans fats in the news. If you've never heard of good trans fats before, let me explain.

The Good Trans Fats

The good trans fats are all natural and they are healthy for you. Natural trans fats are produced in the stomachs of animals like cattle, and sheep and make their way into the fat reserves of the animals. Therefore, the milk fat and the fat within the meat of these animals can supply natural healthy trans fats.

Natural trans fats in your diet have been thought to have some possible benefit to assist in both muscle building and fat loss attempts. However, keep in mind that the amount of healthy trans fats in the meat and dairy of animals is greatly lowered by their grain diets and methods of farming. Meat and dairy from grass-fed, free-range animals always have much higher amounts of these favorable fats.

One trans fat is called conjugated linoleic acid and has been retailed by many weight loss companies. Keep in mind that these man-made CLA pills may not be the top way to get natural trans fats in your diet, because they are artificially made from plant oils. Once again, man-made just doesn't compare to the benefits of natural sources.

The Bad Trans Fats

The bad trans fats are the man-made kind. Any artificially hydrogenated oils exemplify these. Margarine, shortening, and hydrogenated oils that are in most processed foods are the culprits. These hydrogenated oils are considerably processed using harsh chemical solvents like hexane (a component of gasoline), high heat, and pressure.

They have a metal catalyst added, and are then deodorized and bleached. A small amount of the solvent is allowed to stay in the finished oil. Somehow the FDA still lets the food manufacturers put this in our food in vast quantities, even with the well-documented health dangers.

These hydrogenated oils cause irritation internally, which signals cholesterol as a healing agent to be deposited on artery walls. Heart disease has blown out of proportion since this has been added to our food supply.

Soon science will unveil how fatal these oils really are. Eventually they will be banned from use. The labeling laws were simply the first step. Some countries around the world have already banned the use of hydrogenated oils in food manufacturing.

Most companies are replacing them, with highly refined polyunsaturated oils. These are still over processed oils using high heat, solvents, deodorizers, and bleaching agents. Even refined oils are known to yield irritation in your body...a far cry from natural sources of healthy fats.

Your body will bless you as you avoid highly processed foods completely and choose whole, natural, minimally processed foods.

Keep in mind that if an amount of trans fat is listed on a meat or dairy product, it is most likely the natural good trans fats that we've talked about here. Otherwise, if the quantity of trans fat is listed on any processed foods, it is most likely the hazardous unwholesome fat from artificially hydrogenated oils.

Please stay away from these fats! Now that all of your labels should be listing grams of trans fat it will be easy to spot the bad trans fats.

Stay away from any food that lists hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils as an ingredient. Your body will thank you for it.

I hope you will use this information to arm yourself with more wholesome food choices for a healthier body. This was an intriguing look at good trans fat vs. bad trans fat that I hope you keep in mind while making food choices.