Trans fats are bad fats
Trans Fats are Bad Fats. Good Fats are food fats.
What is a trans fat? Any unsaturated fat that has been changed from a natural form (isomer), shaped in one direction (“cis”) to a form that changes its shape to the opposite configuration (“trans”).
Think of it as being “transformed”.
It makes the cell membranes brittle rather than flexible because it has a higher melting temperature.
Cis isomers form a nice, wavy shape (like olive oil) whereas trans isomers make a cell wall go like crazy hair (like margarine).
Want some energy? – Then eat Good fats
Fat in the diet is called a triglyceride. Triglycerides are made of three fatty acids attached to a “spine” of glycerine.
That’s why soap contains glycerine, when the fatty acids are released by caustic soda.
Well, a similar thing happens in the body. Once ingested, the fatty acids are quickly separated in a healthy liver from the glycerine skeleton and made available as free agents.
Fate of Fats
Also called lipids, these are then attached to a lipo-protein carrier for easy transport in your bloodstream.
They are used by the body as a major source of energy.
Cell walls
Most of the fatty acids are taken up to form cell walls.
Or should I say, 80% of each of your 50 trillion cells are composed of fatty acids.
But that’s not all. 50% of each cell wall should be made of omega-3 fats.
But there’s more. Fats are the body’s principle form of energy.
But there’s even more…the surplus fatty acids that are used for neither form – along with sugars, form cholesterol in a healthy liver.
Bad fats
So what are bad or trans fats?
They are vegetable oils or other triglyceride fats whose configuration (shape) have been changed by heat from the cis to the trans shape.
And often combined with oxygen in a bad way, to make matters worse.
This makes them go rancid.
In your body, rancid fats, that pick up fancy names like “free radicles” or reactive oxygen species (ROS), form harmful cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol) that is transported through your bloodstream by the infamous lipoprotein called “LDL”.
Cell damage
As mentioned, the free radicles they harbour cause your own cell membranes to become brittle, and the DNA to mutate or die.
These may eventually become primary causes of tumours of abnormal cells and cancer.
They can also clog up artery walls, are poor suppliers of energy and can accumulate in your body. Arteries “clogged” in this manner may cause your blood pressure to rise, and deprive your organs of oxygen. Organs include brain, gonads, eyes, kidneys etc. You may eventually develop poor memory and reduced sex drive. Other issues may also cause these things to happen. If this is you, contact us for a suggested solution.
Cells breathe too
Not only that but also, in this clinic we have concluded from our Electronic health assessment studies that they are also taken up into cell walls, interfering with the efficiency of normal cell respiration and nutrient exchange. The good news is that we have also concluded from these studies that they will be ejected from your cells in favour of good fats with remarkable alacrity when you undertake our cellular regeneration programme. Our studies show that this “detoxification’ phase will be all over in about ten weeks by following our Wellness Outcome™ programme that seeks to refresh and renew damaged cells.
80% of Cholesterol is made in your liver
In his book “The Cholesterol Myth”, Dr Robert Buist points out a few salient features on fats.
• Fats are needed for life
• Some essential fats that form part of the body’s composition and also produce anti-inflammatory substances which control pain and inflammation
• Cholesterol is a vital nutrient in the body’s survival and is not implicated in the majority of cases of Atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries)
We know that there are unsaturated and saturated fats. What does this mean?
Unsaturated fats
Unsaturated fats are – in the main – essential for the healthy formation of all cell walls, speeding up the unclotting process of blood clot formation, producing health-giving anti-inflammatory prostaglandins. They arise in the organism when it produces the basic unit of the oil, called a fatty acid which then combine with glycerine (a triple alcohol) in a chemical bond known as an ester. These include vegetable oils (such as olive oil) and other plant oils, such a flax-seed (linseed) oil and oils from certain animal species such as fish. Saturated fats also form esters are mainly used for insulation and energy storage and production. These include butter and lard.
The fat paradox
It happens that unsaturated fats are susceptible to heat and are attack by oxygen when heated in air.
There’s always a catch in biology.
The better it is for you, the more that its abuse can paradoxically harm you.
And there’s no greater form of abuse on your unsaturated fats than heat under the presence of oxygen.
This lethal combination causes the good (“cis”) fatty acid (FA) to be shunted over to the dark side of biology and form a trans fatty acid – with attitude! The attitude comes from an oxygen molecule splitting up under the same intense heat and then latching on to the Trans FA (so becoming a free radicle). This has the potential to cause tremendous damage to the very healthy cell walls that a “cis” FA will help create.
Trans-Fats, and Stomach and intestinal polyps
So just what is a good source of a free radical, heat-changed, trans fat?
Sadly, any processed food and many (if not all) margarines.
That means basically anything sitting on a supermarket shelf in a packet or cooked in oil.
Re-heated oils are a particular problem.
Stomach cancer and peroxidated fats
For example, Japan has the highest incidence of stomach tumours and abnormal cells in the world.
This is at odds with its general health record, which shows very low incidences of other abnormal tumours and indeed the highest life expectancy. So why stomach tumours?
I wonder if it’s got anything to do with its rumoured system of four classes of restaurants?
In this case, it is my information from a pathophysiology lecture in my course of 1998 that some cheaper restaurants there will cook with re-used oils.
I can well imagine that re-heating an oil doubles its chances of free radical attack and inducing a trans configuration. So, by using this system of re-using cooking oil, they are basically quadrupling their chance of introducing toxic fats to their diet.
Serious cell wall issues.
But wait, there’s more. If you want to know just what a peroxidated trans fat does to your cell walls, read on. You see… fatty acids comprise 80% of each one of your 50 trillion cell walls. If they are all nice, smooth, cuddly-shaped cis fats then they all fit snugly together, each one forming a sort of slippery-dip shape and complementing the other. This allows for the free passage of nutrient into the cell and waste products out. Incidentally, 50% of your dietary fats should be omega-3 yet, according to the Nutrition Almanac, only about 1% are. Enter a peroxidated trans fat. It is bent the wrong way just to start, causing disruption to the smooth interchange of nutrients and waste. But it gets worse. The oxygen radicle attached to it vibrates at a zillion miles per hour, damaging its own cell wall and any other cell adjacent to it. This causes the ultimate destruction of the cells in question. That’s why they call them reactive oxygen species. The destruction of cells and their corresponding need to regenerate is the definition of the ageing process. That’s right – trans fats cause you to age more quickly. But it gets worse again. If an irritant in one particular spot is doing the damage to the cell walls – say tars from cigarettes – then nearby cells are constantly being “trans”-formed, peroxidated and rapidly dying, and reproducing. Accelerated reproduction of cells – combined with a toxic irritant that can also damage DNA – is the cause of fibrous growths and abnormal cells. So, whether you eat them or inhale an irritant that can cause them to form – trans fats are bad news.
Cooking with oils and your retina
It is clear from the above discussion that cooking with vegetable oils is a really bad idea. There is just nothing good to be said about it. Paul Baumont, Sydney’s leading ophthalmic physician (eye doctor) states that “all vegetable oils are toxic”. Simple and direct. But why should he buy into cooking? Simply because he has tied in trans fats with fatty arteries and small blood vessels. In this state, they will not transfer blood efficiently but cause it to thicken and not oxygenate target tissues, like the retina. That means that you can go blind.
What to cook with?
Water is the best. Steam your food and dip in oil, is the best advice I can offer. That’s how the Italians and Chinese traditionally do it I am told, and what’s traditionally good for them is good enough for me.
And when the Chinese fry traditionally, they do it with pork fat.
Cooking? Use saturated Fats
Another paradox is that big, bad, saturated fats are said to be no-nos – but are they really? As your diet should provide about 30% of its calories as fats, saturated fats are also a dietary necessity. In fact, if you must cook with fats, then butter and lard are the most stable fats under heat. It gets back to the old macrobiotic saying. There is no good and no bad in food groups – there is only yin and yang (balance). But you can make trans fats an exception to the rule. They are all bad.