Are you purchasing DEATH?
Eating outside and ordering delicious food online from the most favored outlets is increasingly becoming a part of our daily busy life due to various reasons. Spicy food varieties prepared at street outlets have always attracted the food lovers due to its mouthwatering taste along with pocket friendly price. You eat and relish its taste and feel more temptation to eat even more.
But do you know that by doing so unknowingly you are buying death for you and your kids? BE CAREFUL BEFORE YOU PURCHASE!
The delicious dishes prepared in butter or so called butter or claimed to be fried in pure oil may contain significant amounts of trans fat.
What is trans fat?
Trans Fatty acids are unsaturated fatty acids that contain hydrogen molecules added by chemical process in the factory. Let’s not go in the details of complicated chemistry but in simple language it is a specific type of fat particle produced after chemical processing done on few varieties of vegetable oils like soybean oil.
Why hydrogenation of vegetable oil is done?
As oils are typically liquid at room temperature and not stable. they become rancid within a short time period. Hydrogenation converts liquid oil in to more stable solid form. Once hydrogenated, these oils are more stable and resistant to oxidation. Oxidation causes breakdown of fats when exposed to heat. Hydrogenation prevents it. Thus, hydrogenated oils are easy to use in baked or fried foods as they’re less likely to become rancid than other fats and have longer life. The amount of trans fatty acids in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils can be as high as 60%.
Food items prepared from the hydrogenated oils can be stored for much longer duration. Apart from that they are much more economical too. That’s why they are the preferred cooking fats for many food outlets.
Which food contain trans fat?
Some of the most common sources of hydrogenated vegetable oils include:
- Margarine, fried foods, baked goods, non-dairy coffee creamers, crackers
- French fries, doughnuts
- pre-made dough e.g. biscuits, cookies, cakes
- Microwave popcorn, potato chips, packaged snacks
INDIAN DISHES that may contain trans fat:
- Bakery products: Biscuit, rusk, cake etc.
- Fried foods: Bhatura, poori, pakora, bhujiya, fried savoury mixtures (namkeens) etc
- ‘Muska’ of popular muska bun purchased from unregistered places may have large amount of hydrogenated vegetable oil processed in the factory to look like butter.
- Re-heated oils: Small amounts of trans fats are also formed when the same cooking oil is used for repeated frying; not only at commercial outlets but even at household levels.
Why trans fat is dangerous or fatal?
Of course they are not fatal like a lethal poison killing immediately but surely they act as slow poison as you consume them over years. Trans fat increases your bad cholesterol and decreases good cholesterol thus alters the healthy ratio of LDL to HDL i.e. bed cholesterol to good cholesterol by enhancing production of bad cholesterol. Evidence on the potential detrimental effects of industrial trans fat first emerged in the 1950s. In 1957 Kummerow and colleagues found that lipid extracts of tissue specimens from 24 human subjects who died of heart disease contained hazardous amount of trans fat in in heart tissue, aortic walls, in the plaque formations of heart vessels and in the liver of deceased. In another 16-year long study in nearly 85,000 women found that those who consumed the high amount of trans fats, which are a by-product of hydrogenation, had a significantly higher risk of type 2 diabetes. One 20-year long study observed 78,778 people associated with high trans fat intake had significantly greater risk of heart disease.
Trans fats increase insulin resistance perpetuating diabetes. Combination of diabetes and high consumption of trans fat containing food popularly known as junk food contributes to increased morbidity and mortality in the society.
Trans fat increases inflammation
Sterile inflammation describes inflammation that occurs in the absence of an infection and is a symptom of numerous chronic diseases including atherosclerosis, the process that causes block in the arteries. In a trial in healthy men, a diet containing 8% of daily energy from industrial trans fatty acids caused a 340% increase in plasma concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP)-the marker of inflammation, after 5 wk of intake compared to a diet with no trans fat. Imagine what will happen to you when you consume these items for many years?!
Presence of industrial trans fatty acids in the diet resulted in Liver toxicity. Diseased liver may impact the metabolism of cholesterol creating further morbidity.
Any wonder why the food savvy young generation is getting trapped in the deadly web of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure leading to sudden death at young age?! The combination becomes more lethal in the presence of work stress and addiction to tobacco and alcohol.
Next time when you purchase food be careful to choose the items less likely to have trans fat. Remember levels of trans fat less than 0.5% means less than 0.5 grams per 100 grams of food stuff is narrated as 0% trans fat. However consumption of multiple portions of such items on day to day bases cumulatively gives you high amount of trans fat.
