It seems that by simply reducing the amounts of trans fats in its food products…a food company can market the fact that they are a “health conscious company” that is “looking out for their customer.”

Surely, we missed the important lesson to be learned from trans fats.

Artificially manufactured Trans fatty acids are produced when vegetable oils are “hydrogenated” a processing technique that transforms liquid oils into solids. You will find artificial trans fats in everything from margarine to cookies and fast food.

Natural Trans fats can be found in milk, and most other dairy products as well as the highly popular weight loss supplement CLA.

So our problem wasn’t trans fats, it was an overabundance of artificially manufactured trans fats appearing in our food supply.

So, how do we solve the Artificial Trans fatty acids problem?

Well the food industry has decided that new techniques of product blending and further chemically transforming oils to create solid oils that are “virtually trans fat free” is the best solution to this problem.

But the other, less talked about option is a simple one:

Recognize that this problem was caused when we started to over-process our foods. And, that if we moved back to using whole foods and whole foods ingredients in our foods, this problem would be eliminated.

However, it is important to note that this is not the fault of the food companies.

Food companies simply react to the demands of their customers. We want healthy food options, and we want healthy food options that meet the trend of the day, and we want them NOW.

In my opinion, Artificially manufactured Trans fatty acids are just another example of the widespread damaging effects of obsessive compulsive eating and our addiction to the idea of creating super nutritious foods.

After all, Artificially manufactured Trans fatty acids were born from the OCE decision that butter was EVIL and had to be replaced in our diets at all costs…(and that’s exactly what happened)

Nutrition should not be difficult and eating should not be complicated.

If the idea of making foods healthy involve massive amounts of processing and making conscious decisions to eat a food based on its supposed health value, then we are going down wrong path.

Keeping it simple will always be the healthiest answer

BP

I’ve never been a big gum chewer, but I decided that I should go on a shopping trip and see exactly what is going on in the gum aisles these days. I was amazed by what I found.

Firstly…from what I could find at my local convenience stores, almost all gum contains aspartame, sucralose, or acesulfame-potassium (remember I’m in Canada, so the ingredients may be different then in other countries).

The interesting thing is that this includes the “sugar” gums – Even the well known “bubble gums” contain both sugar AND artificial sweeteners!

We have gotten to the point where chewing on straight sugar isn’t sweet enough anymore, we have to add artificial sweeteners to sugar to make it sweet enough for our tastes!

Secondly, and probably most shocking to me, was that several of the “bubble gums” contain hydrogenated vegetable oils in their ingredients. I had no idea that there could be trans fats in bubble gum!

Just another reason to read the labels on everything you put in your mouth.

BP

The first story concerns the City of New York. It seems that the Board of Health for New York City has recently voted to make New York the nation’s first city to ban Trans fats at restaurants.

I found this story to be very interesting because as little as two decades ago Trans fats were introduced into our diet as a way to “save us” from the evils of saturated fats like butter and lard. And now research is starting to be published that questions the dangers of saturated fat, while trans fats are being banned by an entire city and David Kats, the director of the Yale Prevention Research Center is describing Trans Fats as “basically a slow form of poison!”

Then just this morning, I read on nutri-ingredients.com that an Australian company has just lunched a new “healthy milk” in China. This “healthy milk” has had all the animal fat removed and replaced with vegetable fat.

mmmmm yummy.

It seems to me that in our never ending quest to blame the foods we eat for our health woes, we keep making Frankenstein versions of food that inevitably come back to hurt us even more than the original versions.

My advice is the same as always. Eat lean and green. Fill your plate with as many vegetables as it can handle, don’t be afraid to add as much color into your diet as possible, and try to limit the amount of food you eat that comes in a box.

And lastly, try cooking with butter. Yes butter. It tastes great, it cooks evenly, and at least with butter you know you are adding 2-3 grams of fat to your food, as opposed to some of the alternatives, in which you are adding 2-3 grams of ‘who knows what’ to your food.

BP

Fasting Diet, Circuit Training