Hydrogenated fat and health

One day, hydrogenated fats and oils will be conclusively linked to heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, clogged arteries, at the least.  One day, studies may also link obesity, lethargy and chronic pain to the consumption of hydrogenated fat.

Happily, that day is approaching much more rapidly than we would have thought.  A plethora of new studies, and a new labeling law in the United States, promise to raise awareness among consumers.  One group leading the charge, Ban Trans Fats, filed a lawsuit against the makers of Oreo cookies, which have poisoned kids all over the world with their high levels of hydrogenated fat.  Kraft foods, one of the world's largest food producers, responded to that effort by promising to reduce the amount of trans fats in many of their products.  Large commodity companies are now offering low and no trans fat products for commercial bakers.

Hydrogenated oils went mainstream in America in the 1920s, when the vegetable oil cartel finally became more powerful than dairy farmers, and cardiac arrest has been going up ever since.  According to the Harvard Medical School, the chemicals found in hydrogenated fats may be responsible for as many as 100,000 premature deaths per year, in the U.S. alone.

We feel there is no question that hydrogenated fats are closely related to the epidemic of heart and arterial disease in America and the rest of the "developed" world.  We urge you to eliminate at least 95 percent of the hydrogenated fats from your diet.  On July 10, 2002 the United States Academy of Sciences basically agreed with us.  They said there is "no safe level" of trans fatty acids in the American diet.  What is the primary source of our trans-fatty acids?  It's the hydrogenated vegetable oils found in so many of our corporate prepared, pre-packaged foods.  Read the story.

• What is hydrogenated fat?
• What is wrong with hydrogenated fat?
• Where are hydrogenated fats found?
• What are some hints that a product might contain hydrogenated fats?
• They wouldn't put hydrogenated fats in kid's foods, right?
• What about Fast Food?  Does it have hydrogenated fats?
• What about partially hydrogenated fat? Isn't that better?
• Why do food manufacturers use hydrogenated oil?
• How do I find food products without hydrogenated fats?
• HEY! I'd swear I bought this product a year ago and it had no hydrogenated fats. I bought it again and it did. What gives?
• Where is your medical proof against hydrogenated fats?
• So, can I lose weight by eliminating hydrogenated fats from my diet?
• So, what can I do?
• The big picture.
• Was there a conspiracy to eliminate natural fats from our diet in favor of artificial hydrogenated fats?

What is hydrogenated fat?

Food factories create hydrogenated fat by cooking liquid vegetable oils at very high temperatures and pressures. Machines pump hydrogen into this brew, along with a metal catalyst, often nickel. The hydrogen gas fills in the missing hydrogen bonds on the oil molecule, turning the liquid oil into a solid or semi-solid form.  Animal fats like butter or lard are hard at room temperature because there are few or no missing hydrogen atoms.  These fats are called "saturated."  Hydrogenated fats are "artificially saturated."

For more on this process, click here.

What is wrong with hydrogenated fat?

Our bodies do not readily recognize these artificially saturated fat molecules. Thus, they are difficult to digest, and stay in the body a long time. This can cause weight gain and digestive troubles.

Hydrogenated fats are high in trans-fatty acids.  The trans-fatty acids found in products containing hydrogenated oil are linked to increases in bad cholesterol and decreases in good cholesterol; i.e., more heart attacks.  Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Wageningen Centre for Food Sciences in the Netherlands took a look at 25 studies on the subject and concluded, in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, that the more trans fatty acids you eat, the higher your risk of a coronary disease.

When fats break down in the body, one of the products are chemicals called prosteglandins, which regulate certain body processes. Prostaglandins help control inflammation, and are used by the body in many ways, for instance during sex, or after you twist your ankle. Some prostaglandins cause inflammation, others work against it. Hydrogenated fats break down into prosteglandins which cause inflammation, throwing off that delicate balance and leading to chronic inflammatory diseases and pain.

Where are hydrogenated fats found?

Just about everywhere in the modern American supermarket. Unfortunately, they are even more prevalent in children's foods, and children are the last people who should be eating hydrogenated fats.

Two very common products are all hydrogenated fat:

• stick margarine
• vegetable shortening

Since many well-intentioned home bakers use shortening, home-made cannot be deemed non-hydrogenated.

Several other products are nearly all hydrogenated fat:

• tub margarine
• Non-dairy whipped dessert toppings and cake frostings
• Non-dairy coffee creamers

Dozens of everyday food products contain appreciable levels of hydrogenated fats. Unfortunately, in these categories of ubiquitous products, nearly every brand, flavor or variety contain some amount of hydrogenated fat.

• breads, rolls and buns
• cookies
• pop-tarts
• cakes
• crackers
• ice cream
• candy
• breakfast cereal
• granola bars
• peanut butter
• dips or spreads
• chips and snack foods
• fried fast foods
• frozen potatoes
• frozen waffles

Search the Trans Fatty Acid database to find the amount of dangerous trans-fats in all types of food products.

What are some hints that a product might contain hydrogenated fats?

Products containing hydrogenated fat tend to be solid, not liquid. The following words are tip-offs:

• chewy
• creamy
• lite
• no animal fat
• no cholesterol

They wouldn't put hydrogenated fats in kids' foods, right?

Wrong!  Kids foods have some of the highest levels of hydrogenated fats.  Especially guilty are the breakfast cereals, cookies and crackers that kids love. Breakfast bars, snack bars, peanut butter and other products marketed for kids are loaded with hydro fats.   We feel strongly that the epidemic of fat, lazy, attention-deficit children in the United States is at least partly a result of a diet extraordinarily high in hydrogenated fats and refined sugars.

What about fast food?  Does it have hydrogenated fats?

Fast food is loaded with hydro fats.  Hamburger and hot dog buns all have it.  French fries are mostly fried in pure hydrogenated fat now, since beef tallow is politically incorrect. McDonalds, among others, switched to vegetable shortening a few years ago in response to misguided public pressure to get rid of lard.  Why was Mickey-D's loathe to switch?  Because lard-fried fries taste better!  So now, we get bland fries with as much as 40 percent trans fats.  Be sure to read Fast Food Nation to get the scoop on the many evils of corporate-controlled fast food.  

Donuts are also fried in hydrogenated fats and have some of the highest counts of trans fats of any food.

What about partially hydrogenated fat? Isn't that better?

No. In fact, it may be even worse. Partially hydrogenated fat has the alien, altered structure of the fully saturated version. Because not all the hydrogen bonds were filled with hydrogen, it may even be likely to carry more of the metal catalyst. Furthermore, because there are still hydrogen bonds unfilled, it will go rancid much faster than fully hydrogenated oils.  Here is an interesting discussion of the partial hydrogenation debate.

Why do food manufacturers use hydrogenated oil?

Three reasons:

• Cost
• Market factors
• Shelf life

Cost: Hydrogenated oils are cheaper than butter or coconut oil, the two most likely replacements. Lard or tallow are cost competitive, but carry taste or public acceptance problems.

Market factors: Liquid vegetable oils cannot replace hydrogenation for all applications, particularly in baked goods. If hydrogenation were all of the sudden unacceptable, prices for butter and other replacements would rise. Advertisers have brainwashed most of the public that animal and tropical fats are bad, and vegetable oils are good.  Do to faulty labeling laws, products which contain no actual cholesterol, but make your levels of low-density cholesterol go up, may still be labeled as "no cholesterol."

Shelf life: Fully hydrogenated products will not go rancid for a very long time. Think: Twinkie. This is a major consideration for large or multinational bakers who ship products across oceans or continents. Ditto for wholesales and retailers who stock and sell these products. This factor also causes hydrogenated oils to be added to products which really do not require them, such as ice cream or peanut butter (ground peanuts and salt is really all you need).  However, good packaging can partly make up for the rancidity factor.

How do I find food products without hydrogenated fats?

It is possible to purchase bread, cookies, ice cream and all other named products which do not contain hydrogenated oils. After eight years, I know what to look for. Here are recommendations, by category:

• Breads: Fresh local sourdough is usually a safe bet. Locally produced, organic, wheat or gluten free health-food-store-type breads are good. Rolls and buns are almost a lost cause, as are flour tortillas. Try pocket bread, fresh bagels or corn tortillas.
• Cookies: 100-percent butter always works. Fat-free cookies held together and sweetened with juice are another good substitute.
• Cakes and confections: Look for all-butter cakes. Flaky pastries like croissants should be safe. More and more, you can find muffins made with oil. Donuts are fried in hydrogenated fat; commercial pie crusts almost always are made with shorterning.
• Chocolates: Good chocolate contains cocoa fat, not hydro. I have never seen hydro in See's Candy, but Whitman's and Godiva is loaded with it. Snickers candy bars can be either. Reese's cups are reliably clean.  Hershey regular and almond bars are always hydro-free.
• Candy: Things like sweet tarts, candy corn (my personal favorite), gum, hard candy and jujubes are mostly ok. Avoid caramels, tootsie rolls, Starbursts, chews, or filled candy bars like 3 Musketeers or Milky Way. If you must have a candy bar, 5th Avenue, Baby Ruth or Mounds are better bets, but by all means read the label.
• Chips: Old fashioned kettle potato chips and regular Lay's are usually ok, most other potato chips are loaded with it. Tortilla chips vary tremendously. Again, health food stores, and occasionally aftermarket food outlets, will have acceptable non-hydrogenated and sometimes organic alternatives. Pretzels are more reliable, but must be watched. Corn chips, Sun chips, bagel chips, sourdough chips and corn nuts are all hydrogenated.
• Crackers: It is almost impossible to purchase crackers without hydrogenated oils. Some plain water crackers may be clean.  Rykrisp are clean.  Health food stores are your best bet. 
• Ice Cream: Haagen Dazs is the only totally clean product line. Portofino is very good. Sorbets is a safe bet. Ben and Jerry's, which claims to be all natural, has hydrogenated fats in most flavors. Godiva and Starbucks are equally bad. Small, organic brands are a much better bet. Mass-produced stuff is totally unpredictable.
• Breakfast cereal: Your basic corn flakes, bran flakes, cheerios, and rice krispies are typically fine. Life is fine. Kiddie cereals, unfortunately, are nearly all hydrogenated. Granola needs to be watched carefully. Instant oats are an excellent replacement, but watch out for pre-fab flavored oatmeals.
• Granola bars. Your basic rolled oats and honey is usually safe. Anything chewy or coated is going to be a hydro bomb. Kiddie granola bars are the worst offenders.
• Peanut butter: Go as basic and natural as you can get. Johnson's Old Fashioned, sold in many discount chains, is straight peanuts and salt, which is all you need. Some stores offer a "grind your own" service; this is highly recommended. The major national brands are all hydrogenated.
• Dips and spreads: This is a very wide open category. Anything non-dairy is hydrogenated, so look for a "real" diary label. Some of the new fresh or frozen guacamole products are not bad, and avocados are an excellent substitute for hydro. Beware bean dips and other fancy spreads. Pate is a much better choice, if you can handle it.

HEY! I'd swear I bought this product a year ago and it had no hydrogenated fats. I bought it again and it did. What gives?

Food manufacturers can and do change their product formulas, often based on market conditions. Sometimes, they print their packaging to read something like "may contain corn, safflower or partially hydrogenated soybean oil..." which means they change formulas frequently. Products can vary from region to region, as well, depending on market conditions and public attitudes. Cookies in the tropics, for instance, may just as likely contain coconut oil as partly hydrogenated soybean oil. The best brands can afford the fewest variations in formula; the brand name is at stake.

Where is your medical proof against hydrogenated fats?

If you want to sit around for 50 years while proof is uncovered, be my guest. It is much wiser to err on the side of caution. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.

In November, 1999, the United States Food and Drug Administration announced its intent to require the listing of trans-fatty acid content on food labels in the U.S.  The Harvard Medical School estimates that premature deaths in the U.S. attributable to hydrogenation/trans-fatty acids in the diet to be between 30,000 and 100,000 annually.  Read their well-documented review of the trans-fat issue.

It will be very difficult to prove, conclusively and to the satisfaction of the "professional" scientific community, that hydrogenated fats are responsible for the massive increase in cardiac disease which has occurred in the United States since these hydrogenated vegetable oilswere widely introduced into the general diet after World War I. There literally millions of confounding factors for any scientific survey. Studies on rodents or primates can be strongly suggestive, but are not often accepted as conclusive on their own.

Oftentimes, researchers who are trying to expose the truth about hydrogenated fats are harassed.  Read an interview with medical researcher Mary Enig, who fought the edible oils industry and won.

It takes a lot of money to perform rigorous scientific studies. Over the last 20 years, the share of scientific research funded by governments has declined dramatically. Corporations now control the research agenda, even at prestigious universities. Enormously wealthy and powerful agribusiness cartels like Archer-Danield Midland and Cargill have absolutely no interest in funding research which might prove their multi-billion-dollar product lines are slowly killing millions worldwide. If agribusiness does fund research, you can bet it will be either "inconclusive" (researcher wants another fat contract) or will claim the harm is negligible or imaginary (corporation feels it has paid enough)

If people want studies, they will have to tell their government representatives to fund them. Medical research funded by manufacturers of the product being researched is utterly corrupt.

So, can I lose weight by eliminating hydrogenated fats from my diet?

We think so.  How much you can lose depends on how big you are.  You should be able to accomplish a modest weight loss with no other change in your diet.

So, what can I do?

Simple. Don't buy hydrogenated food products. Don't serve them to your family or your friends. Don't give them to the food bank. Don't eat them in restaurants. Explain your reasons to others; write letters to manufacturers and elected officials telling them your objections to hydrogenated fats in the food supply.

The big picture.

The precautionary principle states that when a product is reasonably suspected of hazard, it is up to the manufacturer to prove its safety or it should be removed from use. Since there is no public consensus on this issue, and precious little public knowledge, we cannot expect these products to be removed from public consumption any time soon, if ever.

We must always be vigilant to keep hydrogenated fats out of our diet, or at least greatly reducing their consumption, especially among children. The old 95 percent rule works fine here. Eliminate 95 percent of the hydrogenated fats in your diet, and the other five percent won't hurt you.

In some ways, eliminating hydro from your diet makes your life a little easier. In developed countries, there are many product choices. If you look at a label, and see hydrogenated fats, you can feel confident in putting that product back on the shelf and moving on.

More and more, we see products on the shelves labeled "no hydrogenated fat" or "no trans-fatty-acids." This shows that manufacturers can change. In fact, many food items manufactured with hydrogenated oils can be manufactured without them. With encouragement, smaller food processors will find a niche in the market producing foods without these unnecessary and potentially life-altering synthetic fats.

Was there a conspiracy to eliminate natural fats from our diet in favor of artificial hydrogenated fats?

Several people have proposed this.  Here is a very long-winded but complete answer to that question.