zoedragon

In my college days I would buy twinkies by the boxful, nosh on Doritos and donuts and have a stockpile of microwaveable popcorn. It's only been recently that I've become more health conscious to the point of reading the food labels of everything I buy.

Maybe you've heard about partially hydrogenated oils, also known as trans fats. They come in many varieties, including "vegetable shortening". I had heard of them before, but never knew what the big deal was. Now I know. It's one of the worst things possible to put into your body, and it's everywhere.

In order to prolong shelf life, companies developed partially hydrogenated oils. They take regular oil and inject molecules of metal into it, like nickel or alumninum. (It's more complicated than that of course, but that's part of it.) The human body has no idea what to do with this stuff, so it just sits around in your body as a toxin, greatly increasing your risk of cancer and other diseases. Why do you think food containing trans fats lasts longer? Because the bacteria don't want it. Why should you?

I've made all my family members aware of what I've learned, and now they check their food labels too. I just wish I had known this sooner. I used to LOVE margerine, french fries, ramen noodles, cookies and microwave dinners. All poison. I'm trying to make more people aware so the food industry will take a hint and stop putting this crap in all their food.

Now that more people are becoming aware, the food industry is getting sneakier with their labels. Hydrogenated oils can also be hidden as "mono diglycerides", commonly found in ice cream. Even Dreyers has it. Thank goodness Ben & Jerry's does not.

Be aware of what you eat. Read the labels. The healthier stuff will most likely cost more, but isn't your long-term health worth it?

jamarquez

Well, Well, nice little piece here.

The only thing I read is the Saturated fat.

zoedragon

Saturated fats are not actually as bad as some make it out to be. Granted they're not great for you, but given a choice between something fried in vegetable oil and something fried in saturated fat, I would choose saturated fat. Weird I know. I wouldn't believe me either if I hadn't read about all this stuff.

Polyunsaturated fats are unstable. High temperatures denature them, transforming them into something that your body has a hard time processing. Saturated fats are very stable. High heat does nothing to them and thus makes them safer to use for deep frying and high-heat cooking in general. I try to avoid deep fried stuff altogether.

French cuisine is known for their high use of butter in their cooking. But you'll find more obese people here in the U.S. than in France. Partially hydrogenated oils cause more obesity than saturated fats. I can't remember the specifics anymore, but there's a lot of info out there if you Google for it.

jamarquez

Really? O man i would think the other way around. I too try to avoid fried foods all together BUT the only thing I can't stay away from and that I LOVE is KFC...yumm

zoedragon

Oh I know, KFC is so yummy! BUT it's also completely drenched in trans fats. It's horrible. Most of my favorite foods have become part of my "must avoid for fear of my life" list. Unless a fast food joint specifically advertises that it does not use trans fats, it most likely does. Trans fats are so much cheaper to buy because food processors can take a batch of regular oil and expand it into a much larger batch of partially hydrogenated oil. That's why margarine is a tiny fraction of the cost of real butter.

jamarquez

I find that funny, how "good food" is much more expensive (like fruits and salads) but when it comes to getting your $1 double Cheeseburger at McD thats a WHOLE different story.

and you have you think

$3 for a 1/4LB of Fruit or a $1 1/4 Burger

zoedragon

Yeah, my grocery bill has gone up a bit since I started shopping more at Trader Joes and Wild Oats rather than Vons and Albertsons. However I do find that Trader Joes has VERY reasonable prices for the quality of stuff you get. I try to shop there more than other natural food stores. A lot of their cereal is actually cheaper than those commonly found in the usual grocery stores. Oh I LOOOVE cereal and was devestated what I found out my favorites (Honey Bunches of Oats and Cinnamon Toast Crunch) contained trans fats. Luckily there are many cereal brands out now that are safe.

jamarquez

Im not a Honey Bunches of Oats kinda guy BUT I love Cinnamon Toast Crunch...anyways I got to go do my reading, I'll chat with you later zoedragon..

zoedragon

The food processing is a huge, huge industry and BIG money is involved. It's a lot like the tobacco industry before regulations finally started trickling through. There is few, if any, TV information on the subject because the industry leaders do their best to keep opposing research quiet and unheard. It's terrible because, until they know better, people will go on thinking vegetable shortening is better than lard, because aren't vegetables good for you?

MandyMindy

Been watching my diet ever since high school. I started early maintaining a healthy diet and my parents are health conscious too, thanks to the Atkins diet.

zoedragon

That is good to hear. It's especially good that you started so early. Just keep in mind that the Atkins diet is another big business, meaning they don't particularly care about your health as much as their pocketbook. Be sure to read the labels when you buy Atkins products, or any food product for that matter. They may produce items without carbs, but what did they replace it with? Maybe it's nothing harmful, but it's good to stay aware.

jrdonson

I've been controling my intake this year yes. I gained the freshman 15 last year and have been trying to think about what I eat so I don't gain another 15.

I look on the lable and keep an eye out for the flowing:

Transfat - Transfat is directed right to your fat stores and is harder to loose.
Saturated Fat - While not "bad", it's best to limit this sort of thing.
Monosaturated fat - The good fat, this keeps your systems (blood and lymphatic system IIRC) lubed up and working in proper proportion.
Calories - While, I don't count them - I try to stay away from high calorie, non filling foods. For example - twinkies, dingdongs, dounuts, etc are all high in calories but low in actual mass. Grapes, citrus fruits, etc are all very low in calories due to their water content - which makes up most of their mass.

As far as actual content - I try to stay away from processed bread and anything with high fruitos corn syrup listed in the first 5 ingredients. Corn syrup is just not healthy and if you imbibe too much in one day, your body will try and convert it to fat. Processed breads do not have the fibrils inside of them, and causes your body to retain a lot of the bread and convert it likewise to fat.

James

zoedragon

Ugh, high fructose corn syrup is even more prevalent in our food than the trans fats! I steer clear of sodas because you're basically drinking syrup. It's in a lot of cereals too, along with most sweet processed foods. However I'm very glad to see a growing trend of replacing this syrup with natural cane sugar. It's mostly in the stuff from health food stores, but it's starting to creep into mainstream grocery stores too.

Admin

Speaking of food label, help me out on the Nutrition Facts.
I have a box of Golden Grahams cereal and this is the serving size:

Serving Size 3/4 Cup (30g)
Servings Per Container About 12
and calories and a list of vitamins and fats.

Based on the serving size, I get all the calories from eating 3/4 cup of the cereal. But what does "Servings Per Container About 12" mean?

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zoedragon

The nutrition facts they give you is based on the serving size of 3/4 of a cup. However inside the box there is much more than 3/4 of a cup of cereal. There are 12 servings in that box, meaning 3/4 of a cup times 12.

Did that make sense at all?

Mike

I never read the nutrition facts when I am in a restaurant so who knows how much calories I consume when I eat an entire plate of baby-back ribs. The only time I read the label is when I do the grocery shopping myself.

zoedragon

It is prety difficult to find the nutritional facts of a restaurant, especially the sit-down kind. It's not like it's printed in the menu or anything. In general it's "safer" to eat at a restaurant where they make everything from scratch. That way you know they aren't using pre-processed items.

Admin

I'm sure most of you have been exposed to the media covering on this very topic the past few months. The State of New York is planned to ban trans fat by April 2007 thanks to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and many major food chains are replacing trans fat with an alternative, less harmful to the human body.

I'm really thankful that zoedragon wrote this thread back in October 2004 because I then started to see the back of the nutritional facts since and disregarded snacks that contained a surprising amount of trans fat. Trans fat are common in retail packaged cookies, chips, and bakery goods because of the expiration.

ak

This thread is full of awesome information. Thank you.

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