Avoiding trans fats doesn’t just mean staying away from junk food.
Good, Great, Bad, & Killer Fats
Not all fats are bad, though; there are good fats: the monounsaturated fats in nuts and avocados. There are great fats: the Omega-3 fats in flax seeds. And then there are the bad fats: the saturated fats found primarily in meat and dairy. And finally, the killer fats—trans fats, which are found in only two places: hydrogenated oils, and meat and dairy. Trans fats are basically found only in one place in nature—in animal fats.
Now, thanks to better living through chemistry, though, the food industry found a way to create these toxic fats synthetically by hardening vegetable oil in a process called hydrogenation, which rearranges their atoms to make them behave more like animal fats. This may be good for shelf life, but is not good for human life. The most prestigious scientific body in the United States, the National Academy of Sciences, released a damning report on trans fats, and concluded that the only safe intake of trans fats was zero.
The Academy said that the tolerable upper daily limit of intake was zero. If the National Academy of Sciences is saying the only safe intake of trans fats is zero, and about one-fifth of American trans fat intake is coming from animal products, did they recommend that everyone should eat only vegan? No, they didn’t; but why not? They were challenged on it, and one of the authors of the report, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, responded: “We can’t tell people to stop eating all meat and all dairy products. Well, we could tell people to become vegetarians…” He added, “If we were truly basing this on science we would, but it is a bit extreme.” Amazing. Wouldn’t want scientists to base anything on science, would we?
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
Not all fats are bad, though; there are good fats: the monounsaturated fats in nuts and avocados. There are great fats: the Omega-3 fats in flax seeds. And then there are the bad fats: the saturated fats found primarily in meat and dairy. And finally, the killer fats—trans fats, which are found in only two places: hydrogenated oils, and meat and dairy. Trans fats are basically found only in one place in nature—in animal fats.
Now, thanks to better living through chemistry, though, the food industry found a way to create these toxic fats synthetically by hardening vegetable oil in a process called hydrogenation, which rearranges their atoms to make them behave more like animal fats. This may be good for shelf life, but is not good for human life. The most prestigious scientific body in the United States, the National Academy of Sciences, released a damning report on trans fats, and concluded that the only safe intake of trans fats was zero.
The Academy said that the tolerable upper daily limit of intake was zero. If the National Academy of Sciences is saying the only safe intake of trans fats is zero, and about one-fifth of American trans fat intake is coming from animal products, did they recommend that everyone should eat only vegan? No, they didn’t; but why not? They were challenged on it, and one of the authors of the report, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, responded: “We can’t tell people to stop eating all meat and all dairy products. Well, we could tell people to become vegetarians…” He added, “If we were truly basing this on science we would, but it is a bit extreme.” Amazing. Wouldn’t want scientists to base anything on science, would we?
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
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Good, Great, Bad, & Killer Fats
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URLNota del Doctor
Some recent videos on the beneficial fats in plant foods:
And learn more about the negative effects of saturated fats in these videos:
- Does Coconut Oil Clog Arteries?
- Telomeres: Cap It All Off with Diet
- More Than an Apple a Day: Combating Common Diseases
- Breast Cancer Survival, Butterfat, and Chicken
Some recent videos on the most damaging fat of all, trans fat:
- Trans Fat In Meat And Dairy
- From Table to Able: Combating Disabling Diseases with Food
- Lifestyle Medicine Is the Standard of Care for Prediabetes
And check out my other videos on fat.
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