BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

NOWADAYS, THE word “trans fats” is heard quite often when it comes to the dilemma of eating or not eating processed or junk food. But many of us don’t even know what trans fats are and why they are so bad for us to consume directly or indirectly. Or how they contribute towards our current epidemic of heart disease and type 2 diabetes and much else. What are trans fats? Trans fats were invented by food manufacturers when they wanted to turn vegetable oils into solid or semi-solid fats; these trans fats are usually used in a gamut of processed or so called junk food so that junk food remains fresh longer! What an irony! In other words, trans fats are used by food manufacturers to prolong the shelf life of food but not the life of humankind.

In fact, in the US of A where government health departments take citizens’ health seriously, both the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation and the US Food & Drug Administration have advised consumers to boycott hydrogenated fats and transfats in food products because these fats have been indicted in heart disease. It’s reported that 30,000 to 1000,000 cardiac related deaths can be prevented in the US if people replace trans fats with healthier non-hydrogenated polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oil (quoting a Harvard University School of Public Health). And this is worth taking note of: For every two percent increase of calories from trans fats, the risk of heart disease increases by 36 percent!

Where can you find trans fats? You’ll be surprised and shocked! Yes, in chocolates and wafers, in shortening and margarine, in ice-creams, biscuits and cookies, cakes, breakfast cereals, burgers, bakery produce, French fries, pastries, pies and puffs, fried chicken, pizza. All things we love to eat in our mod con driven urban lives! What is ironic that in the beginning the trans fats were invented by food manufacturers as an alternative to saturated fats…but now it has been found that trans fats are actually more dangerous than saturated fats to consume directly or indirectly in a myriad processed foods. Health journals now constantly warn consumers about the “new dietary killer in processed foods” called trans fats; read the labels of products carefully if you’re concerned about your family and your health, look out for such ingredients as “partially hydrogenated fats” or “trans fats”…it is legal for food manufacturers to mention fat denominations and ratios in their labeling, although in India it’s not only government departments which turn a blind eye to criminal food processing but people too continue to be ignorant or indifferent even if it is our individual and collective health is at stake here.

Trans fats are basically polyunsaturated vegetable fats which have been changed by a processed called hydrogenation. It’s a chemical process whereby vegetable fats or oils are turned into solid or semi-solid fats i.e. fats which are more firm at room temperatures and remain “fresh” for extended periods of time. Hydrogenation entails heating the oils at extremely high temperatures and then pumping gaseous hydrogen through them (thus, “hydrogenation”)…it’s a process which alters the oil’s hydrocarbon bonds to create new molecular structures for fats which we now recognize as transfatty acids or transfats. Food companies started using these industrially transformed fats regularly as a “healthier” alternative to saturated fats in the 1980s in such foods as cookies and crackers to prolong their shelf life…but more enlightened food companies today go to great lengths to tell you that there are “No transfats” in their products! Look for “No transfats” and “No hydrogenated fats” on junk food labeling if you want to be an educated shopper of processed foods, something which has become such an insidious part of our urban lifestyles of plenty but consumer illiteracy.

The truth is our bodies don’t understand synthetic or fake fats so far removed from nature…like trans fats or hydrogenated fats…body intelligence treats them like so much garbage to tuck away somewhere in body tissues where eventually all the trouble with arteries and heart and overworked organs start, heart disease and cancer manifest themselves like a cry for help. A series of reports from the US Institute of Medicine, the US National Academy of Sciences and other expert committees have upheld the view that trans fats should be considered as risky as saturated fats in their ability to raise blood cholesterol levels and increase the risk of heart disease. And don’t kid yourself: there is no such thing as a safe amount of trans fats in our diet. The more educated countries of the West have called for a complete removal of trans fats and hydrogenated fats from food products…while we in India continue to specialize in more and more processed foods at the expense of destroying our trusted agricultural lands of old in favor of promoting more urbanization and industrialization till there’s no more air to breathe or food to eat in the old-fashioned ways of our grandparents!

The bottom-line now is really to get rid of the junk fats from our eating habits which, of course, is easier said than done given the callous economic and political realities of our times when making and selling death in the garb of power drinks, liquor, drugs, tobacco product, junk food and so on is not an ethical or moral issue! You might want to think about all this when you next think life is all about being “bad boys” or “bad girls” to go places fast…

Incidentally, there is a silver lining. There is a new cheering trend in that in some niche circles today it’s becoming fashionable to shun alcohol, tobacco products and promiscuous sex! As also to buy grow/buy fresh produce to cook from scratch at home instead of eating out and buying home food constantly. Perhaps gen next is becoming conscious and conscientious - though not quickly enough to make a dramatic difference. Perhaps as more young people realize how the lifestyles promoted by their parents’ generation spell out nothing but a bitter harvest of frustration, despair and premature death for them, they will be the moving force behind change anew…for the better!