Simple Nutrition Insights

From Confusion to Clarity: Removing Trans Fats from Your Plate

• Leonila • Episode 46

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Can you really afford to ignore the hidden dangers in your food? Discover why trans fats are one of the most harmful elements in our diet and how they silently wreak havoc on our cardiovascular health. We'll break down what trans fats are, how they're made, and why they're still lurking in our food despite regulatory efforts. You'll learn the difference between naturally occurring trans fats and the ones created through hydrogenation, and why both can be detrimental to our health by raising bad cholesterol (LDL) and lowering good cholesterol (HDL).

Ever wondered why your "zero trans fat" snack might not be as healthy as it claims? We'll uncover the truth about misleading food labels and share practical tips to help you navigate ingredient lists like a pro. By choosing minimally processed foods and being mindful of hidden trans fats, you can significantly reduce your intake and lower your risk of heart disease, inflammation, and other chronic conditions. Get ready to revamp your eating habits with a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, and understand the broader health implications of trans fats on your well-being.

Join us as we take a holistic approach to nutrition, featuring a remarkable case study that showcases the transformative power of dietary changes. Learn how prioritizing plant-based foods and omega-3 sources can improve liver health, reduce systemic inflammation, and optimize your body's natural healing processes. This episode is packed with actionable insights, real-life success stories, and crucial information to help you make wiser food choices. Stay informed, stay healthy, and remember: thoughtful nutrition can be your best medicine. Check the show notes for all the research references mentioned in this episode!

Mechanisms of Action of trans Fatty Acids

Facts about Trans Fats
Trans fat is double trouble for heart health

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Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode in the Simple Nutrition Insights Podcast. I am your host, lenny Lacampos. Today is all about trans fats. Now, I hope you have heard this term before. It's something that usually a lot of healthcare providers talk about. You're able to find it in a nutrition facts label, which I'll go over in a moment. But I really want to talk about the importance of limiting them. Where we can find them, how can we, you know, substitute them, replace them, eliminate them, whatever the case may be? And here is why.

Speaker 1:

Right, because trans fats, you know, there are two types, right, the ones that are occurred naturally in food and the ones that have been chemically modified. Right. And so we want to start, you know, I guess I should start with like, what are trans fats? Right? So trans fats are essentially liquid oils, right? And these liquid oils, when you add an extra hydrogen, right, they become hydrogenated. Right, that's the term. We add a hydrogen and they become hydrogenated. Right, that's the term. We add a hydrogen and they become hydrogenated. But to the food industry, right, this is great because it helps with the preservation of food, it helps with the taste of food, the texture, obviously, it expands, extends the shelf life of food, and so it makes it easier for the food industry, right, to mass produce food without going bad or without turning it over right.

Speaker 1:

Often, however right, what it does to our health is detrimental for our cardiovascular health. So that's what it is right. In simple terms, trans fats are a type of unsaturated fat, right, you know, an oil, a liquid oil, and unlike unsaturated fats, which you know, in other words, are healthy fats like avocados, nuts, seeds, olive oil right During that industrial processing of iodine and hydrogen, seeds, olive oil, right During that industrial processing of iron and hydrogen, they become solid, right, and so that, just like saturated fats, right, it affects our cardiovascular health In the smaller amounts, right, that are found in, like dairy or meat. Right, when we consume them in higher amounts, it affects pretty much every single organ in our bodies. So let's get more into it, right, the primary issue with trans fats is that they raise your bad cholesterol, ldl, and they lower your good cholesterol, hdl, and they lower your good cholesterol, hdl. Now, this is a problem because you're not only increasing your risk for heart disease, right, but by decreasing your good cholesterol, which, you know I like to use this analogy is that your good cholesterol is like a taxi, right, it goes around your arteries. Your good cholesterol is like a taxi, right, it goes around your arteries, it goes around your cardiovascular system and it picks up, right, the LDL, the bad cholesterol, and it takes it back to the liver where it's stored, where it's processed.

Speaker 1:

When we consume this higher amount of trans fats and we are increasing our bad cholesterol and decreasing our good cholesterol, guess what happens? Right, there's a lot of passengers, there's a lot of people right waiting for a taxi, but there's not enough taxis, and so they just accumulate, right, and they continue to accumulate, and then they can cause atherosclerosis, or they can cause scarring of the arteries, which you know deposits causing deposits, cholesterol starts to build up there, it narrows the arteries, right, and so then the heart has to work harder, right, to pump that blood. But with that pressure, right, a small piece of that buildup can come off, right, and that's what can lead to a heart attack, that's what can lead to a stroke. And so that's why it is extremely important now the um, the usda right, recognizes, um, this impact because trans fats have been around forever, right and so. But back then by health organizations didn't know the the impact of trans fats, fats and what it did to their cardiovascular health or their cardiovascular system. Obviously, as you have people dying of heart disease, they investigate, right, and so they realized that, okay, the food industry is using these high amounts of trans fats, these partially or fully hydrogenated oils, and people that have, you know that, have done autopsies and, like, found out, okay, what is the main cause of death? Right, and so then policies are put in place, right, and so I want to say, in 2018, the USDA said we need to decrease the amount of trans fats in food, right to the food industry, because there is a high correlation to heart disease, and so, you know, these changes happen.

Speaker 1:

In some places in Europe, the trans fats are not allowed, right, only, obviously, the ones that occur naturally in food. But added trans fats right, the food industry using these trans fats are not allowed In the US. Right, there are still foods that have it, and I'm going to tell you right now how to recognize that. But I really want to emphasize that the intake of trans fats right, even as minimum, as you know, we can consume, they're still affecting our cholesterol, right, they're still affecting our bad cholesterol, our good cholesterol and, overall, our inflammation, right? And so there's a lot of research that shows that even small amounts of trans fats can have harmful effects.

Speaker 1:

Consuming trans fats have been linked to higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, inflammation, stroke, certain cancers, and so when we think about okay, oh my gosh, I didn't know any of these, right, oftentimes when we have these higher levels, let's say you go to the doctor and your doctor say you have high cholesterol and they give you these general recommendations, right, okay, they may eat red meat or decrease your fat, or don't eat any fat, or whatever the case may be, but there's not so much emphasis on let's look at trans fats, let's look at saturated fats specifically, and this is why I'm doing this, essentially this episode right, because we have to be looking at these things, obviously, as a dietician and all dieticians for the most part are going to be talking about these things when we have a patient or when we're talking to a client about cholesterol. Right, because it plays a huge role in a cardiovascular health, right, and in our cholesterol in general. And so how can we avoid them? Right? First of all, we have to read our nutrition facts label. You don't like reading the nutrition facts label? How are you going to know where they are right? Well, you could know by just buying the food product specifically, but the nutrition facts label can tell you so much. Yeah, it might not be 100% accurate, but it is going to be pretty accurate. Right, you're going to know what's on the food, and so you have to read the nutrition facts label, but, furthermore, you also have to read the ingredients list Because of that change in policy.

Speaker 1:

Right, that said, we have to decrease the amount of trans fats in the food that we're consuming. It doesn't mean that there is zero trans fat. Although on the nutrition facts label, right, you might see zero, it doesn't. It's not going to always be zero, because if you find partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredients list, that is trans fat. But because the USDA said we have to limit the amount of trans fat in the food per serving to 0.5 grams or less 0.5 grams or less, not zero you don't have to put it on the food label, right, on the nutrition facts label, but you do have to put it on the ingredients list, right, because it's part of the ingredients. And so when you see a product and you look at, okay, that's zero trans fat, excuse me, it's always going to be zero.

Speaker 1:

But you have to do your due diligence and, looking at the ingredients list, to see if that particular product has partially hydrogenated oils, fully hydrogenated oils, which is trans fat, right, but it's probably less than 0.5 grams and so they don't have to add it, but it doesn't mean, right, that you're not consuming enough of it. So that's per serving, and let's say in a day you have three servings, and for that particular product, let's say it has 0.04 grams, right, times three, that's what 0.48. That's 1.2, right, 1.2 grams of trans fat, which is pretty significant. So the general recommendation is to keep it to 1%, right, 1 to 3% max of your total calories coming from trans fat. So let's assume I'm consuming 1800 calories, right? Let's make that calculation just to give you a more practical image, right, of what I'm talking about. So let's say I consume 1800 calories, 0.0. Let's say 1%, 180 calories. You divide that, divide that by nine, right, because there are nine calories of fat in one gram. So that is going to say about 20, which is a lot actually.

Speaker 1:

Um, but when we look at foods, right, oftentimes we don't really, we just look at okay, zero trans fat, or this looks good, right, we are not doing our due diligence on what else is in the food right? Does it really have zero trans fat? Again, that's where you need to really look at what's in the ingredients list, right? So what are some examples of foods that could have trans fat? Baked goods, fried foods, margarine, snack foods like chips and crackers. Sometimes restaurant foods are going to use trans fats as well, and so it is also important when you're eating out.

Speaker 1:

Right, asking if it's not on the menu. Right, how are you preparing your meals? What ingredients are you using? Are you using extra oil? Are you using margarine? These are things that you have to ask. You have to advocate for yourself. It might be embarrassing at first, yes, but nobody's going to care. Right, we have to care about ourselves. Nobody cares about ourselves, essentially, in the overall picture, but you have to advocate for yourself, right? In these situations, it's not embarrassing. You have the right to know how the food is cooked, how the food is prepared for your own health and well-being. So what else can we do?

Speaker 1:

Right to maybe decrease our intake of trans fats is adding minimally processed foods. You can still have treats, you can still have these foods, but ideally, you want to replace them with foods that don't have the hydrogenated oils or partially hydrogenated oils, and the majority of your meals are wholesome oils and the majority of your meals, right, are wholesome. Think of your five food groups, and I've talked about these, you know, extensively, so you can always go back to my previous episodes where I talk about the five food groups or I talk about the 3-2-1 nutrition method. But keeping your foods right, the majority of your foods unprocessed, right. Again, think about these five food groups fruits, vegetables, whole grains, proteins. Your high calcium, high vitamin D foods, right, or dairy if you consume dairy. If you stay within those food groups, right, the amount of saturated fat, the amount of trans fat is probably is very minimal, right, but as you start to add in more processed foods, the more that you eat out right In these fast food places, the higher the amount of trans fats that you're consuming. So, keeping it at that level right, making sure that you're having enough fiber coming from your plant sources fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds and so we have to really make sure that we are diligent at our meals.

Speaker 1:

Now I focus mostly on the effects of our cardiovascular health, right, but when we consume food, it's not only affecting individual organs, right, but it's affecting essentially our entire body. So there is a lot of, also a lot of research that shows that consuming these trans fats right, these foods with trans fats, and then that can also it can also affect our inflammation, right. And so how, like, how is that? Um, how does that work? Right? So consuming this higher amount of trans fats can impact our cell membranes, so it the it can alter the structure and function of our cells, right, which can affect how our cells communicate and respond to signals, which can lead to an inflammatory state, right.

Speaker 1:

But we also know that as inflammation increases, right, that also affects our oxidation, right, it creates oxidative stress. And so, because it produces free radicals, right, which are unstable molecules that can damage our cells, now, this oxidative stress also triggers the body's inflammatory response, right, the body sees hey, there's a lot of free radicals here, we need to attack them. Right, inflammation, when there's a, a response to increased inflammation, right, our, our body senses fighters, right, to try to attack whatever is causing the inflammation. And so then that can also affect our ability to repair damage, right, to recover and repair. Now, the way that we fight oxidative stress, right, these free radicals, is by adding antioxidant foods. But oftentimes, when we are consuming these processed foods, these foods that have the trans fats, right, we're not adding our high antioxidant foods with our fruits, our vegetables, right, our nuts and our seeds. We oftentimes don't eat that. So then we're not really helping our bodies right to fight that oxidation, to repair, to lower our inflammation, specifically if we're not, if we're eating consistently right, this way, and so our bodies are so amazing, uh, keeping us healthy, keeping us alive, that we're not going to have these symptoms right away. Right, but you will have them down the line, you will have them in a couple, several years.

Speaker 1:

What trans fats also do is that they activate those pro-inflammatory pathways, right, and so there are specific proteins that get triggered, right, these are called nuclear factor Kappa Bs, and these pathways play a huge role in regulating the immune response and inflammation, right. So when activated, it promotes the production of inflammatory molecules like cytokines. And so now you have these high levels of inflammation, you have this oxidative stress and you're also overstimulating your immune system. So it makes sense, right, that when you do get sick, your body is overworking, right, that it's harder for you to get better, or it's more difficult for your body to fight, right, let's say, diseases off. Right, because it's working so much by adding these, these foods that have these trans fats, but it also creates these imbalance and fatty acids, right. So fatty acids, in other words, are the fats that we consume.

Speaker 1:

We talked about saturated fats coming from your animal foods, for the most part, coconut, too your trans fats coming from hydrogenated oils or partially hydrogenated oils, but we also have our healthy fats, right, or unsaturated fats. When you're consuming more of these saturated and trans fats, you're consuming less of these unsaturated fats, right. It creates that imbalance, and so your healthy fats are going to be your omega-3s, right, but also coming from your plant sources, and so these omega-3s help with inflammation, right, so they lower our inflammation levels. So if you're not adding them, right, then there's another factor that's contributing to these higher levels of inflammation too, and so imagine all these things happening. That is not only affecting your inflammation, your immune system, right, your oxidative stress, your cells. You're essentially affecting your body at a cellular level, but you also affect your gut microbiota, right, the microbes in your gut, which play a huge role in so many functions, right, that's usually where our health stems from our gut microbes, and so there's a lot of research that suggests that trans fats can alter the composition of our gut microbiota, right, the community of all these microorganisms in the digestive tract, and that disruption can lead to imbalance. That favors inflammation too. Right Again, when our gut microbes, right, are dependent on us and we are dependent on them.

Speaker 1:

It's the symbiosis that we have with them, right, so they depend on us to feeding them fiber, right, our fiber, again, comes from our plant sources fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds. Oftentimes, when we're eating more of these high trans fat foods, we're way limited in these plant sources, right, in this fiber which is going to feed the good bacteria, in these plant sources, right, in this fiber which is going to feed the good bacteria. And so then, what that leads to is that the good bacteria, when there's not enough food, right, not enough food for them, right, the fiber. Then what it does? It starts to munch on this mucin, this mucus layer that lines your stomach, right, they're hungry, although there's all this food, right, coming in, but it's not food that they can use, right, on the contrary, it's producing more inflammation, right, and so you're really altering your gut microbiota, but they also feeding on this mucus, a membrane, right, it's mucin that it gets to a point, right that now you're having tummy issues because this essentially good bacteria, right, is feeding on your stomach, on the lining of your stomach, because it needs food, and then, if there's not enough, then they start to die out. And now these bad bacteria right that at one point were sustained at a level that the good bacteria was keeping them right, now they're overgrowing and so then you start to have these other issues.

Speaker 1:

So see how trans fats play a huge role not only in our heart health, not only in our liver which also has been shown to contribute to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease with the combination of high fructose corn syrup, which I believe I talked about that already in previous episodes but it affects your entire body, right, it affects your inflammation, it affects the oxidative stress which affects you at a cellular level, it affects your gut microbiota, it affects your immune system. So, my friend, I'm not telling you right not to eat a big product that you like, right or not to go out and eat, but there has to be not even a balance, right? You have to be able to shift how your foods are composed and where your foods are coming from from more of these processed right, highly processed foods to more of these wholesome foods right, because you have to be able to fuel yourself from within. You have to be able to give your gut microbes right these nutrients that they need to keep you healthy right. But you also have to lower this inflammation, because there's a lot of research, too, that shows that the higher levels of inflammation, right. Then you start to develop these other issues, maybe more of these that at one point were thought of like anti-inflammatory issues, right, or autoimmune diseases that we were not seeing before, right. But we're seeing them more and more now because of how our nutrition is, and so it's so interesting to see, you know, I see patients from different ranges and I saw and it's so, you know, it makes me really sad and concerned that I'm seeing more and more younger adults, even teens, that are coming to me because they're having non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, right, and these cholesterol issues I'm not talking about just the weight, right, but more so these organ issues that they're having that we know that if they're not addressed consistently right, by changing the way that our nutrition is, they're going to grow, they're going to get into this adulthood with those issues already and maybe even liver damage, right.

Speaker 1:

But as we start to change our nutrition and I saw that with a patient recently, right, and this is just in a matter of about four or five months where we really switched he was eating a lot of fast food, right, a lot of fried foods, a lot of sweets, right. So he came to me with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, stage two right, that it was already some scarring, right, not significant. And so his doctor told him you know, you have to make changes, otherwise we're going to go into this phase where you're, or this stage where there's not reversing, right, you're going to need a liver transplant because you go into cirrhosis. So the mom and him right, you're really young, I think, in his twenties maybe came to me and we worked on the nutrition part of it, right. It wasn't like, oh, you need to avoid X, yz, right? No, let's add some foods, right, let's make sure we're adding more plant sources, let's make sure we're adding more of these fish, right, or these omega-3s, let's reduce your inflammation. And then he went to the doctor, right, and the liver enzymes were already lower, right, because we were decreasing the inflammation, we were adding more fiber. He was also having like really stomach problems, right, because we were decreasing the inflammation, we were adding more fiber. He was also having like really stomach problems, right. He said I felt like I was having a heart attack and I would have to go to the doctor. Right, he was having more also high acid reflux, right.

Speaker 1:

And so as we are switching right our nutrition and we're allowing our bodies to heal, we're reducing this oxidative stress, then we can really see a difference, right. But it is so true, food is medicine, right, when we choose the right foods, when we choose to have more of these balanced meals, right. Again, it's not to say, oh, don't ever eat that food, right, or don't ever eat a cookie, but it is how, on a day-to-day basis, right, how our meals are composed. So it's important to think about that right and really read your nutrition facts table, because even if you buy something that you think, oh, that seems pretty healthy, it says zero trans fat, but then you read the ingredients list, right, and there is high fructose corn syrup, then there is partially heterogenated oils, and you're like, oh my gosh, no, it's definitely. Maybe you need to find a different option, and a lot of the time now there are healthier options out there for what usually you like to eat, and you can try that right. What usually you like to eat, and you can try that right.

Speaker 1:

I want to make sure that I do mention that I said the USDA made these changes, but it's actually the Food and Drug Administration, right, fda. The FDA asked the food industry to decrease or eliminate trans fats or hydrogenated oils, so I want to make sure that that is clear there, because I think I said it in the UFC. But, my friend, just to recap here trans fats are a type of liquid oil that has been processed to add an extra hydrogen to keep it more stable, by the food industry, to add more flavor and to extend the shelf life, right. But with that change, it affects our cardiovascular health, our inflammation, it affects our oxidative stress at a cellular level, and so we want to make sure that we are reading the nutrition, the ingredients list, right, to make sure that you don't find those ingredients there. But at the same time, right, we're adding more of these wholesome foods.

Speaker 1:

This is something that we have to do in order for our bodies to repair, recover and heal. We have to be able to allow our bodies to do that. So let me uh what questions you have. I'm adding the the research that I used for this episode in the show notes for for extra information, so let me know, um, if you have any questions. Take care, my friend, stay strong and stay safe and see you in another episode. Bye, bye, for now.