Nutirition Tip: Trans Fats

This is my first post about nutrition related items. A large part of being healthy and realizing your fitness goals includes eating well also. Obviously, this does not mean swearing off sweets and alcohol forever, but it does mean watching what you eat pretty closely. A basic way to do this is to educate yourself on nutrition. Educate yourself on the foods you eat. While I am not a dietician nor do I pretend to be one, I am a firm believer in diet having a HUGE bearing on how you feel and on the success of any fitness/wellness program. The information I post will mainly be from other sources and from my own experiences. In turn, these tips are meant to be a starting point for you to do your own research.

In a job like law enforcement, we all know eating on the run and in a hurry is part of the job. However, this does not mean you have to eat something really bad for you. Generally, most people want to restrict your diet to 20% fat (in terms of total calories) and keep saturated fat as low as possible. There are several types of fats, some healthy, some not. In this case, I am writing about trans fats. Trans fats typically are in products that are fried and in some others like Hostess pastries and Oreo cookies. As many of you have probably seen, there is a push to remove trans fats from all food and many fast food restaurants have changed to trans fat-free fryer oil.

Chemically, trans fats are created through a process called "hydrogentation". Normally unsaturated fats become more "saturated" and this provides for a longer shelf life of the product, among other things, but this bad for you. It extremely difficult for your body to break-down these trans fats because the enzyme that breaks down fats cannot break down trans fats very well at all. They stay in your blood for much longer and are a large contributor to arterial plaque and blockages. They can raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol. Trans fats have been greatly associated with higher risks of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

The FDA mandated that trans fats be listed on the labels of products awhile ago, but they are allowed to say there is "zero" trans fats as long as the serving has less than .49 grams of trans fats. So you may eat several servings and really be getting .49 grams for each serving you eat. The American Heart Association states 2 grams or less per day of trans fats is the maximum you should consume, so you can easily go over the recommended 2 grams per day if you don't look more closely. To find out if the foods you eat contain trans fats, look at the ingredients. If the item contains "partially-hydrogenated" or "hydrogenated" oils, try to avoid it.