More About Bad Fats & Oils

Source: Trans Fats.

The process of partial hydrogenation produces trans fats by straightening out the unsaturated molecules through rearrangement of the hydrogen atoms at the position of the double bond. These altered fats are solid at room temperature and so can be used in baked goods and for frying.

But trans fatty acids have been increasingly implicated as contributing to cancer, heart disease, auto-immune disease, tendon and bone degeneration and problems with fertility and growth.

Trans fatty acids in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are the main cause of type 2 diabetes, characterized by high levels of both insulin and glucose in the blood, because they inhibit the insulin receptors in the cell membranes.

The obvious solution for the food industry is to use natural saturated fats such as coconut oil, palm oil and tallow (from ruminant animals such as cows and sheep) for frying and for baked goods, as they used to do. But this would involve admitting that the demonization of saturated fats that has been going on for the last fifty years is completely unscientific. And a return to a sensible policy of using natural, traditional fats would bring down the huge and powerful seed oil industry, which is the lynch pin of the American commodity agriculture system.