We’ve heard a lot of advertisements lately about how trans fats were bad for us, and how we needed to eliminate them from our diet.  As a result, trans fat elimination has become a new, national past time.  Even fast food restaurants are taking the trans fat out of their products, which is great news for those who believe that trans fats are killing our hearts.  We are being force fed information about alternatives to this bad fat, so that we can still have our food but with a heart-friendly kick.

Trans fats occurs naturally in meat and dairy products.  However, they only occur in small amounts, and the real culprit of trans fat overload is found elsewhere.  It’s being consumed in partial hydrogenation of vegetable oil.  While that may sound like a lot to say about the trans fat, it’s a fact that this kind of fat has been proven to cause bad cholesterol which leads to heart disease.  So, it’s something to be concerned about - let’s face it, we only have one heart, and the way it goes, so we go with it.

Public uproar has sent many companies running for the healthier food aisle, with everyone now offering fat alternatives that are not only edible and good for us, but retain the texture, taste and flavor of foods.  After all, we may be looking for healthy food, but we don’t want to sacrifice taste for it, not if we can help it.  We also demand a reasonable shelf life and a stable product.  I think that’s about it.  So, the scientists went away and came back with two words that described a process that we can’t pronounce.

Chemical interesterification.  That’s right, chemical inter-rester-i-fi-ca-tion. Got it?  Okay, this process is easier to understand that it is to pronounce.  It means that it fully blends the hydrogenated oils or saturated fats with unsaturated oils, using a chemical catalyst to achieve this.  That last one, chemical catalyst, is an accelerant like what you pour on your barbeque coals to get a big flame when you drop your match.  Okay, this process is blended with lots of water, and the end product is free of trans fatty acids.  The only downside is that the catalysts and the actual process aren’t that earth friendly although the outcome is friendly to our hearts.

They generally use sodium methylate or sodium ethylate as their chemical catalysts which are very corrosive chemicals which react violently with water and acids.  They also combine this with other environmentally toxic elements causing a massive amount of oil waste along with an excess of water usage.  That is the current method.

As with all things invented, the scientists are working on a Plan B called Enzymatic interesterification which does the same thing but with proteins that don’t need harsh, chemical catalysts and avoids all those toxic byproducts.  This technology is not new, but like all things that cost more than the cheapest thing you can find, it costs more than the chemical version.  And, so it’s sat around unused for decades.  In defense, the enzyme stability has also posed some problems until recently when it was solved by two companies.

With all of that said, we can move forward with keeping the trans fats out of our systems while not killing off the environment in the process.  If you’re looking to see if there are trans fats in what you’re about to buy know that many products list it as “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” which is a cloak for what it really is.  The government has stepped in and forced them to produce accurate labeling.

Photo by: Elena Kalistratova -
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