Trans Fats: A Thing of the Past?

Written by Courtney Tierney. Media by Fallyn Paruleski.

Trans fats have been an increasing problem in our country for a while now. What exactly ARE trans fats? The American Heart Association gives us this definition of what they are: “Trans fats (or trans fatty acids) are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid. Another name for trans fats is ‘partially hydrogenated oils.’ Look for them on the ingredient list on food packages.” Trans fats can still be found in foods such as donuts, cookies, and frozen pizzas. The FDA have deemed that trans fats are no longer considered safe and are a risk to our health and they have asked, or required really, the food industry to start gradually phasing them out. It won’t all disappear right away, but the food industry has started to phase them out and tried to find substitutes for these trans fats.

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Image from www.health.com.

So what does this mean for food and the quality of it? My question is how will it make food taste different, or will foods like this will just be banned all together? Some foods may never taste the same again, but is this a price worth paying? If this banning of trans fats is successful (which I think that eventually it will be), researchers say that 20, 000 hearts attacks and 7,000 heart disease related deaths will be prevented each year. That’s a huge number of lives saved, and just by cutting out these trans fats.
To me, it seems like a smart thing to do! From the sounds of it, some foods won’t be the same, but the industry is trying to make healthy substitutes for these foods with trans fats. Although I am definitely a big fan of food, and especially food that tastes delicious (which is mostly food that is bad for you), in the long run, this banning of trans fats would definitely benefit us. 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 heart disease related deaths could be prevented just by taking the trans fat out of these foods, and that sounds like a wonderful thing to me! Look how many lives can be saved! I think in the long run, it will be worth it to help nourish and take care of our bodies!

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