Since 2006, companies have been forced to include trans fats on nutrition labels. A great thing came out of this change: many companies took the trans fats out of their products. There is a catch, though, it has to be more than .5 grams per serving. This just means that a company can adjust the serving size so that each serving contains little enough trans fats that they can round down to 0 grams per serving. Sneaky, sneaky. Be aware, and check your ingredients.
What are trans fats? It was a very popular addition to fats, because it doesn't go bad as quickly as other fats. It could also turn liquid fats into solids for easy transportation! The most common trans fat product was the butter substitute: margarine. Right around the time we started to link saturated fats (potentially incorrectly) to heart disease, we added trans fats to everything in its place.
Oops. Trans fats actually increase the risk of a heart attack, multiple studies in the late 80's and early 90's showed. Eating trans fats increase your bad cholesterol, LDL, and decrease the good one, HDL. That can increase inflammation and narrow our arteries. Trans fats have also been thought to cause weight gain and diabetes.
A Harvard study estimated that taking trans fats completely out of our food in the US could save one in five people from heart attacks and death. California is already working on it! How are we going to save ourselves from heart disease related to trans fats?
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