How To Tell If There's Trans Fat In Food

Lately I've been getting some questions about how to tell if there's trans fat in food - especially for items that claim there is zero trans fat per serving. You've heard about the food manufacturers' sneaky little trick right? It is partially the USDA's fault because they do not require companies to label a product as having trans fat if it's less than 0.5 grams per serving. So what do many food companies do? They increase the number of servings per package of course so that each serving is less and therefore contains less trans fat. So, for example if a box of your favorite cereal used to have 0.7 grams of trans fat per serving and they used to claim there were 10 servings per box, they don't have to change the recipe to have less trans fat - nope, they just change the serving size - so in this example, if they change the number of servings to 15 per box (and each serving is now about 1/3 less). They then don't have to claim their product has trans fat because it's now "only" 0.47 grams of trans fat per serving. This has actually happened on thousands of products and is one of the main reasons why so called "serving size" has drastically decreased on many processed foods. This is absolutely ludicrous in my opinion and very unfair to the American consumer who is trying to eat healthier and avoid the trans fat which is a toxin - but for now that's what we have to live with (I am speaking out about this myself and maybe you'd like to to).

In case you haven't been reading my previous posts, trans fat causes diabetes! In fact, it was the introduction of trans fat into the food supply in the 1920's in the form of margarine and Crisco that caused the sudden appearance of type 2 diabetes in the 1930's - did you know that type 2 diabetes did not exist before this time?

It is imperative if you are a diabetic that you learn how to detect trans fat in food. This is because trans fat not only causes diabetes, it also prevents you from having the ability to reverse diabetes naturally. So I want to explain exactly how to determine if a food contains trans fat so you can avoid eating trans fat completely! Please understand that this isn't like eating ice cream where it's ok to eat it occasionally just not all the time (well, depending on whether or not it has high fructose corn syrup and/or other harmful foods). Trans fat is like eating POISON! and you should avoid it 100% of the time.

First, I need to point out again that ALL canola oil contains trans fat. It doesn't matter if it says it is expeller pressed and/or "organic" and/or "all natural" and/or "non-gmo" (the vast majority of canola oil is genetically modified rapeseed oil). ALL canola oil contains trans fat due to the fact that it is a strain of rapeseed that was specifically cross-bred to contain high levels of omega-3 which gets converted to trans fat when it is heated during the processing of the canola oil. This includes the lower heat "expeller pressed" processing you so often see on foods marketed as being "natural." Expeller pressed is still hot enough and kept hot for long enough that the omega-3 is converted to trans fat in high percentages. This has been independently verified by university researchers and you can end up with a product that has several grams of trans fat per serving. So, to avoid eating trans fat, you need to eliminate ALL canola oil from your diet.

Second, I want to explain what to look for on a food label. Because of the "per serving" issue, ignore the claims under the nutrition part of the label concerning trans fat. Instead, look at the list of ingredients very carefully - I have actually gotten into the habit of carrying a small magnifying glass into the store with me when I shop so I can more easily read the sometimes very fine print on the ingredient label. If the ingredient label lists "partially hydrogenated" anything, it has trans fat! Don't buy it! If it says "hydrogenated" anything, same thing. Don't buy it! And again, if it says canola oil, don't buy it as it does have trans fat, very possibly high levels of trans fat in fact! Occasionally, you will see canola oil labeled as "LEAR" or "low erucic acid rapeseed." This is just another name for canola oil (they changed the name for marketing reasons) and you should avoid it 100% of the time.

Ok, this should help you know exactly how to tell if there's trans fat in food. Of course the best way to avoid trans fat is to eat more fresh food or "whole food" like fresh organic vegetables, fresh organic fruits, fresh organic meats, and fresh seafood like wild salmon and shrimp. Most of your trans fat will be hidden in processed foods that come in a box or a can and in those hot food bars and delis so popular in the grocery stores these days. Try a food bar at a natural grocery store that is committed to no trans fat.

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