Tran’s fats are a type of hydrogenated fats that are very harmful to health. Learn why they harm the body and how to avoid their consumption.
When we defend that a diet should be a healthy and healthy diet, one of the issues that we would have to take into account the most (in addition to the consumption of fruit and vegetables itself), is to remove the so-called Trans fats from our daily diet.
Generally, we usually find Trans fats in minimal or very few amounts in some foods of animal origin, although most of the facts of this type that we eat are of artificial origin.
For this main reason, experts recommend being alert with many processed foods, and others that are supposedly “innocent”, but that result in this type of fats that are very harmful to the body.
What are Tran’s fats?
The Trans fats are liquid vegetable oils which become solid through a process called hydrogenation. It tends to apply to the vegetable oils with which, for example, some margarines are made, although more and more companies are trying to avoid them.
This hydrogenation allows to extend the life of this type of oils, thus preventing them from going rancid. And one figure is more than alarming: Trans fats are used in 90% of processed foods that are currently marketed, as they improve the taste and extend the life of the product.
The hydrogenation process of vegetable fats.
Explained in a simple way, we can indicate that the hydrogenation process creates an isomer (called “trans”), which our body is certainly incapable of eliminating, and from which all the health problems that it is believed derive. Tran’s fat intake entails.
How Tran’s fats are harmful to health:
It is true that only some of its negative effects are known, but recent studies have shown that this type of fat should be consumed with great caution.
These investigations have shown that Tran’s fats modify the proportion of lipoproteins in the blood in a totally unfavorable way, increasing the level of bad cholesterol (LDL) to the detriment of good (HDL).
This type of trans fats differ from saturated fats, in that the latter, although they are still not very beneficial for health, our body is able to recognize and assimilate them without problems.
Something that does not happen with Trans fats, since our body does not recognize them, since their structure has been modified, so the fats end up adhering to the arteries.
In this sense, foods rich in Tran’s fats are especially pastries, cookies, precooked foods, some margarines and salty snacks, among others. Therefore, reducing or restricting their consumption of your diet is essential.