Trans fats are made from partially solidified vegetable oils and are also called hydrogenated vegetable oil or fat. Trans fats are created when hydrogen atoms are forced into liquid oils, such as corn or soybean oil, to make them solid at room temperature.

Foods that tend to be high in trans fats include:

• Most (but not all!) margarine
• Cookies, crackers and other commercial baked goods
• French fries, fried onion rings, donuts and other commercially fried foods.

All Wellness Bread products of course, contain no trans fats.

Saturated fats are found in:

• Dairy products such as butter whole milk and cream
• Certain meat
• Some plant oils including palm, palm kernel, coconut oils and cocoa butter

Foods that are rich in unsaturated fats include:

• Oily fish
• Avocados
• Nuts and sunflower seeds
• Canola and olive oil

Impact of Trans Fat
A number of studies have found a link between a high intake of trans fats and heart disease.

Trans fats raise low density lipoprotein (LDL) – the ‘bad cholesterol’ and lower high-density lipoproteins (HDL) – the ‘good cholesterol’. An easy way to remember which cholesterol is good and which is bad, is to remember the ‘L’ in bad LDL cholesterol as signifying ‘Lethal’, and the ‘H’ in the good HDL cholesterol as signifying ‘healthy’. Nicole M. de Roos, M.Sc., a Ph.D fellow in the division of human nutrition and epidemiology at Wageningen University in Wageningen, the Netherlands says that:

“ This might be part of the explanation of why a high intake of trans fats increases the risk of coronary heart disease.”

In a study lead by Dr de Roos, researchers investigated whether the ability of blood vessels to dilate was affected by a high, trans fat diet as opposed to a saturated fat diet. They found that the ability of the blood vessels to dilate was 29 percent lower in people who ate the high trans fatty acid diet compared to those on the saturated fat diet. Blood levels of HDL cholesterol were 21 percent lower in the trans fatty acid group compared to the saturated fat group.

“ Although trans fat intake is only a small portion of total fat, it can have a large impact on disease risk,” says Dr Roos.

Health Concerns

Concern over the impact of trans fat on our health stems from:

• The fact that trans fats are used in so many commonly eaten foods
• The difficulty the consumer has in identifying them in food due to unclear labelling

Alice Lichtenstein a professor of nutrition at Tufts’ Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy states that:

“ Trans fats are scattered all over our food supply.”

Found in over 42,000 food products, the average American consumes close to five grams of the substance a day – evidence suggests even one gram is too much for a healthy diet. She goes on to say that:

“ consumers should look at both saturated fat and trans fat. Together, they should provide less than 10 percent of daily calories – about 20 grams of fat.”

It is therefore important that as part of a healthy diet we reduce the total amount of fat we eat and reduce the intake of hydrogenated and saturated fats replacing them with unsaturated fats.

Legislation on Trans Fat Labelling
Current labelling regulations in the United States and Canada do not require labels to declare the amount of trans fat in a packaged food. This makes it difficult for consumers to know how much, if any, trans fats are included in food products they buy.

This is about to change. Health Canada, followed by the US Food and Drug Administration, have legislated mandatory inclusion of trans fats in nutrition labels, by January 1, 2006.

Wellness bread is ahead of the curve. We develop and label our products as containing no trans fats, so you know you are putting your health first when you buy Wellness Bread products.

Tips to Reduce Trans Fat Intake
While the inclusion of trans fats in our food may not be clearly marked on the labels yet, health-related agencies, such as the American Heart Association has come up with some tips for consumers to reduce their intake of trans fats and saturated fats:

• Use naturally occurring, unhydrogenated oil such as canola or olive oil
• Look for processed foods made with unhydrogenated oil rather than hydrogenated or saturated fat
• Shop for margarine with little or no trans fat and no more than 2 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon with liquid vegetable oil as the first ingredient
• Avoid foods such as french fries, donuts, cookies, crackers which tend to be high in trans-fatty acids unless they are labelled as being free of trans-fatty acids.