How are trans fatty acids made?

I don't know either, but I can tell you, don't take it too seriously.
I am 45, and I have seen these health crazes and scares come and go
like women's clothing fashions. It usually starts with some isolated
researcher, who wants publicity and funding for his lab and his job,
coming up with some esoteric factoid about the "latest" research into
diet issues. Rather than subject his research to peer review, he calls
a sympathetic journalist that is looking for attention-grabbing
headlines or wants to fill an empty slot in a boring morning news
show. He/she appears in a white labcoat and wire-rimmed glasses(the
modern secular version of priestly vestments) and makes solemn
pronouncements on the "latest" scientific "findings" on this or that
"silent killer" of public health, blah, blah, blah...
Another source of these fads are people and companies that have
products or services to promote. It may be that the trans fatty acid
brouhaha was bankrolled by the dairy lobby. I remember about 15 years
ago there was a similar scare about "tropical oils" (mainly palm oil
and coconut oil) which come from areas of the world where people have
way lower cardiovascular disease levels than in the USA. But the USDA
was playing the role of lobbyist for domestic oilseed farmers, and the
result is that peanut oil and cottonseed oil have replaced tropical
oils in restaurant frybaths. Are we any healthier as a result? From
what I hear, we keep getting fatter.
Bottom line? Just use your common sense. Eat in moderation. Rather
than letting your teenager become a couch potato, make them mow the
lawn rather than paying Pablo Mexicano to do it, and you can cancel
that health club membership that you never use. Ride a bike to the
theater, rather than the gashog SUV. Ignore the fads, and live a happy
life.

(jitney) writes:
I don't know either, but I can tell you, don't take it too seriously.

It's been a long time, but a bit of brief info: Fats are (mostly) long
strings of carbon atoms with two hydrogen atoms for each carbon. But
adjacent pairs of the carbons can be missing a couple of hydrogens.
Then they aren't "saturated" with hydrogen, they are unsaturated fats.
And if more pairs of carbon in the same molecule are missing pairs then
they are poly-unsaturated fats. Now, those pairs of hydrogens can be
missing from the "same side" of the molecule or from opposite sides.
One of those makes a cis molecule and the other makes a trans molecule,
cis and trans come from old greek terms. Whether something is saturated
or not, poly-unsaturated or not, cis or trans, all that fiddles with the
ability of our body to shred these up and metabolize them.

A minute with google turned up this, it describes how processing to turn
liquid fats into solid fats can generate these transfatty acids.
faculty.washington.edu/kepeter/118/notes/organic.htm

Bottom line? Just use your common sense. Eat in moderation. Rather
than letting your teenager become a couch potato, make them mow the
lawn rather than paying Pablo Mexicano to do it, and you can cancel
that health club membership that you never use. Ride a bike to the
theater, rather than the gashog SUV. Ignore the fads, and live a happy
life.

Someone decades ago said to avoid the N big risks and enjoy the rest.
I can't remember what number N was. But the media is doing a TERRIBLE
job of communicating relative risk to the public. We really should
change that.

In article , (Don Taylor) was seen to type:
(snip)

Someone decades ago said to avoid the N big risks and enjoy the rest.
I can't remember what number N was. But the media is doing a TERRIBLE
job of communicating relative risk to the public. We really should
change that.

Agreed. We are sold fear in everything these days. The correct answer
is usually ... I'll take my chances thanks and save on the stress of
worrying about it.


Bruce


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to
think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone´s fault.
If it was Us, what did that make Me ? After all, I´m one of Us. I must be.
I´ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No-one ever thinks
of themselves as one of Them. We´re always one of Us. It´s Them that do
the bad things. = Terry Pratchett. Jingo.

Caution === followups may have been changed to relevant groups
(if there weere any)

Don got it pretty much right on.

Here's another link:
http://www.drmirkin.com/nutrition/N198.html

Natural fatty acids are either saturated (no double bonds) or unsaturated
(one or more double bonds). In addition, almost all natural unsaturated
fatty acids are cis- rather than trans-. Furthermore, the double bonds
usually begin between the ninth and tenth carbon atoms in the fatty
hydrocarbon part of the chain and additional double bonds occur at
three carbon intervals after that (these bonds are unconjugated).

Our (and animals) metabolisms evolved to break these types of lipids
down.

Synthetic hydrogenation is unselective about where the double bonds
go, or how they are oriented. So you get cis- bonds and trans- bonds
as well as spacing other than that described above. We did not see these
types of lipids until we made them. We can not metabolize them.

Studies have shown that trans- fatty acids can cause all sorts of
unpleasant things to happen in your body. The above cite spells out
a few of them so I won't recapitulate here.

The best thing one can do is to try and limit consumption of hydrogenated
fats. It's difficult because they are quite ubiquitous in products found
in our supermarkets. We should in fact try to limit total fat intake, but
some fats like hydrogenated (trans- containing) and saturated, are worse
than others.

Jeff Dantzler

In ,
jitney wrote:

* Another source of these fads are people and companies that have
*products or services to promote. It may be that the trans fatty acid
*brouhaha was bankrolled by the dairy lobby. I remember about 15 years
*ago there was a similar scare about "tropical oils" (mainly palm oil
*and coconut oil) which come from areas of the world where people have
*way lower cardiovascular disease levels than in the USA. But the USDA

Actually the truth about trans fatty acids was squelched by the
hydrogenated oil lobby! The first negative article was published in the
early 1970s, and the researcher was promptly visited by a bunch of
henchmen telling her to put a lid on it. FWIW.



--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

In article , Hillary Israeli wrote:
In ,
jitney wrote:

* Another source of these fads are people and companies that have
*products or services to promote. It may be that the trans fatty acid
*brouhaha was bankrolled by the dairy lobby. I remember about 15 years
*ago there was a similar scare about "tropical oils" (mainly palm oil
*and coconut oil) which come from areas of the world where people have
*way lower cardiovascular disease levels than in the USA. But the USDA

Tropical oils may not be as bad as trans fats, but they are heavily
saturated. Lack of cardiovascular disease in the areas they come from may
indicate low consumption and/or especially a less sedentary lifestyle
than that of most USA citizens.

- Don Klipstein )