Trans-fats

[anacrucis]

Last night the subject of Trans Fats came up at dinner briefly before my concerns about the substance were brushed off by my fellow diners

Comments

[fairoriana]

Tragically, transfats (Crisco) are a key to my pie crust. :-( I'm not sure what to do about that, other than sing the "Pie is a sometimes food" song.

[fairoriana]

And my bran muffins and my buttermilk biscuits and my peanut butter cookies, and they play a role in my bread (but I think I could replace that role).

[anacrucis]

It is possible to make pie crust from butter...

[lietya]

"It's hard to know how to respond when a thousand voices previously unknown suddenly, and in unison, cry out "Wolf

[anacrucis]

does a "23% increase" mean an increase from 1 to 1.25, or does it mean an increase from 1 to 24?

[lietya]

That's one of those "lying by statistics" things - it could be either, and it's impossible to know which is meant until the underlying facts are spelled out.

I like to cite that it's widely trumpeted that obesity DOUBLES (or "increases by 100%") your risk of heart disease : and so it does, from 1% to 2%. Most actual scientific studies would not phrase it that way, but as these numbers are being quoted in mainstream articles, I couldn't begin to guess which interpretation the reporter intended. That's one reason I'm hoping for plausible risk assessment data rather than "interpretation"....

[aunticrist]

I used to laugh every time the food nazis jumped out of their holes to either support or decry the eating of eggs because in the end, I knew it was a by-product of the egg industry either needing more or less people eating the damned things. In each of those cases, scientists were falling all over themselves to say what was so good and bad about eating eggs and not once did they ever suggest a middle ground. It was always "Eat more! They're great! They can even do your taxes!", or it was "Don't put that in your mouth! Looking at them can kill you! Eggs kicked my kitten

[rolypolypony]

This is just what I wanted to say, but you said it much better than I would have!

[anacrucis]

What I was trying to say is that typically these issues strike me the same way, but something about this one seems different. Like the health community is saying "no, really, for real this time, we mean it."

[aunticrist]

Yes, and the health community was also up in arms about Equal because of the lab animals and cancer thing. What they said under their breath or not at all was the fact that the amounts of the stuff these animals had to be exposed to for the results to be there was staggering and nowhere near the amount a human would eat in one sitting, or even a few years of having the stuff. Don't get me wrong: trans-fats when eaten in copious amounts with no regard to health can make for a very ill individual, so try not to sit down with a tub of Country Crock and a spoon for a midnight snack. ;)

[kenjari]

I think I remember reading somewhere that the problem with trans fat is that your body processes it very differently from other fats, and in this case "differently" means very bad.
I also wonder if the scare has some relationship with the fact that it is relatively easy to eliminate most trans fat from foods, simply by using oils that haven't been partially hydrogenated (and there are plenty of them). So in some way, it's worth getting scared about, because changing it is fairly simple. If that makes any sense.

[anacrucis]

It makes sense to me. It's one of those things like corn syrup that's easy enough to cut out just by avoiding junk- and processed foods.

[threnody]

Yeah, the Canadian government is looking at restricting trans fats at restaurants and products. The fast food industry is less than pleased at the prospect.