DOMINO #3 – HYDROGENATED FATS: TRANS FATS TOXIC COOKING OILS & FRIED FOODS
Very few in the medical profession truly grasp and understand how hydrogenated fats, toxic oils and fried foods cause disease. In fact, statin drugs are the biggest class of prescription drugs on the market, and while they are given out like candy to address cholesterol, they do absolutely nothing to address or fix the damaging effects of consuming toxic oils. Even those who have a general awareness of trans fats and hydrogenated oils still end up using poor quality oils because this is an area of great deception in both the medical community and the health food industry.
Like the other dominos covered already, the main reason for introducing all these toxic health destroying oils into our food supply has to do with extending shelf life. Pure oils processed properly and used in food will turn rancid in a short period of time. That simply doesn't cut it for large food conglomerates producing packaged foods. They need stable products that can sit on the shelf for at least a year and in a lot of cases upwards of 2-3 years.
There are a number of ways that oil can become toxic to your body. One of the most notable ways is to hydrogenate the oil. Hydrogen added to oil turns liquid oil into a semi-solid product like soft butter that can easily be used for making lots of food products such as chips, cookies, cakes, muffins, candy bars, etc. If you eat hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils long enough, the same solidifying process happens internally with your cells. Every cell in your body has a phospholipid membrane, which is composed of fat. When you consume the wrong fats and oils they will have a negative impact on this phospholipid membrane. When your cells bathe in toxic oils and fried foods it has a negative effect on the three elements needed for a healthy body: Water, Minerals and Oxygen. Bad fats cause cells to become dehydrated, oxygen deprived, and mineral deficient, which ultimately leads to disease.
One of the world's leading experts on fats and oils is Udo Erasmus, author of the book "Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill". We actually conducted an extensive interview with Udo a number of years back. Spacing doesn't allow us to reprint the entire interview here, but we have pulled out some of the highlights that will help you understand this subject in further detail.
Healing fats are required, together with other nutrients, to prevent and reverse so-called 'incurable' degenerative disease: heart disease, cancer, and Type II diabetes. Healing fats help reverse arthritis, obesity, PMS, allergies, asthma, skin conditions, fatigue, yeast and fungal infections, addictions, certain types of mental illness, and many other conditions. Good fats also enhance athletic performance, skin beauty, longevity, and energy levels. Contrary to popular belief based on advertising hype, the most dangerous fats are typically found in margarine, shortening, and heated oils...
It goes like this: in order to give a long shelf life to an oil that by nature has a short shelf life, the oil industry treats that oil with corrosive base (NaOH), then with window-washing acid (H3PO4), in order to remove substances in the oil that are good for health, but shorten shelf life. The oil is then bleached, which turns it rancid. Then, to blow-off the rancidity, the oil is heated to frying temperature. When that's done, you have a supermarket cooking oil. That's been done to all oils normally used, except for extra virgin olive oil. Research says about 0.5 to 1% of the oil molecules are changed and damaged during this processing. They become cyclized, cross-linked, fragmented, bond-shifted, and polymerized. The problem is that when you change a molecule from natural to unnatural you usually change it from healthy to toxic...
If you give your body the right molecules from nature, it will build healthy cells, tissues, glands, and organs. If you give it unnatural, synthetic, toxic molecules, this same genetic program can build tumors, deposits in arteries, pain in joints with swelling and inflammation, and the other molecular reactions that we call 'disease'. This means that your genetic program is your program not only for health, but also for disease...
The second piece of important information that I found is about essential fatty acids. I knew that the word 'essential', when applied to nutrients, has a very specific meaning. An essential nutrient is one that the body must have for health, cannot itself make, and must therefore obtain from outside sources. Insufficiency (deficiency) of an essential nutrient leads to deterioration of health. Deficiency worsens with time. The symptoms of deficiency are degenerative in nature. Too little, for too long, of an essential nutrient leads to death. If enough of the essential nutrient is re-introduced into the diet, symptoms of the deficiency can be reversed.
That definition fits 20 minerals, 14 vitamins, 8 essential amino acids from proteins, and 2 essential fatty acids from fats.
The two essential fatty acids are called omega-6 (n-6) and omega-3 (n-3). N-6 (linoleic acid; LA) was established as 'essential' in 1930, but n-3 (alpha-linolenic acid; ALA) essentiality for humans was established only in 1981, the year after I was poisoned and began to study fats. The timing was perfect to get in on applying this new information about n-3 being essential, which very few people knew at that time.
I also found out that our intake of n-6 has doubled over the past 100 years, albeit in a partially damaged form due to the destructive processing used, and that our intake of n-3 is down to 16% of the amount present in diets 150 years ago. Even in 1850, people were already not getting enough n-3 for best of health. Probably 95-99% of the population gets too little n-3 in their diet.
One of the main reasons for its decrease in the diet is that n-3 is quite sensitive to destruction by light, oxygen and heat. N-3 is five times more sensitive to damage than n-6. If you process n-3 the same way as n-6 cooking oils, you do even more damage to n-3 oils than what has been done to n-6 oils....
Over the past 20 years, a great deal of research has been done on n-3. That research can be summed up in one sentence. Increasing intake of n-3 in the diet improves almost all of the degenerative conditions of our time. This is because they are essential for health. Every cell, tissue, gland, and organ must have them to function normally, and most people don't get enough.
Crusador: Can you explain trans fats and the hydrogenation process so that our readers understand the difference?
The toxicity produced by the processing of cooking oils goes far beyond the problem of hydrogenation. Hydrogenation has been getting quite a bit of attention while the overall toxicity within cooking oils has been almost completely neglected.
Fundamentally, when oil is hydrogenated, hydrogen is bubbled through the oil with the goal of changing liquid oil, which has a relatively short shelf life, into a plastic, spreadable fat that has an increased shelf life. Bubbling hydrogen gas through the oil in the presence of a nickel aluminum catalyst does two things: it destroys double bonds and twists the molecules. You go from an n-3 [Omega-3] to a trans fat to a damaged n-6 [Omega-6] to an n-9 [Omega-9] with one double bond to a saturated fat. If you completely hydrogenate oil, it will become a saturated solid fat – so hard that you'd need a chisel to break out pieces of it. Its melting point is about 70°C (158°F), which is substantially higher than body temperature (97°F).
Crusador: Are hydrogenated fats and trans fats the same thing?
Not exactly! Completely hydrogenated fat contains no trans fats. You can only have trans fats in partially hydrogenated oils, which still contains double bonds in the molecule. It is a twist of the molecule around the double bond that makes a trans fatty acid. Without a double bond, a fat cannot be cis (natural) or trans (twisted) anymore.
Crusador: We hear that hydrogenated fats and trans fats actually solidify the body's cells – that the solidification process that occurs to the oils causes cells to solidify, as well. Is there any truth to that?
That's a simplistic way of explaining it. Trans fats do make membranes harder, which means the body will take cholesterol out of the membranes. Consequently, the body will need more n-3 and n-6 to return the membrane to its proper flexibility. Harvard studies show that trans fats double the risk of heart attack and increase risk of diabetes.
Crusador: What's the difference between saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated fat?
Saturated just means not essential (body can make it), no double bonds (a hard fat like butter, beef fat, pork fat). Monounsaturated means not essential, one double bond (olive oil, also in butter, beef and pork fat). Polyunsaturated means two or more double bonds. Usually, polyunsaturated is used to mean essential n-6, and 'super-unsaturated' is sometimes used to mean essential n-3.
Fat molecules are bent by the double bonds they contain. They are made more liquid. The more double bonds a fatty acid has, the more liquid it is and the more chemically active it is.
Saturated fat is about two and a half times more stable than monounsaturated fat, which is two and a half times more stable than polyunsaturated fat, which is five times more stable than the seed n-3 super-unsaturated fats (ALA), which is five times more stable than fish n-3 (EPA and DHA).
The stability/chemical activity of oils determines the shelf life of fats and oils, as well as the energy levels that they can bring about in the body. The less stable the oil, the higher the energy it can produce in the body, and the more care it requires during processing.
Crusador: We're told to limit and avoid saturated fats and that saturated fats are bad for us. Is this true?
That's true if the diet does not contain enough n-3, but false if n-3 intake is optimized. Saturated fats are a part of every cell membrane; they are good fuel, and the body can burn them. Ideally, saturated fats from animal sources (milk, cheese, eggs, chicken, beef etc.) should come from grass-fed, free-range, organic farms. Saturated fats have been given a bad reputation, but in conjunction with healthy n-3 fats, saturated fats from healthy sources can be very healthy.
Here's the story of saturated fats in context: In an n-3 deficient diet, saturated fats will make platelets stickier, and will increase insulin-resistance. That means greater risk of heart attack, stroke, embolism, and diabetes. But n-3 makes platelets less sticky and decreases insulin sensitivity. Saturated fats and n-3 have opposite effects. In our fat consumption, we should first consume an optimal ratio of undamaged n-3 and n-6 essential fats, emphasizing n-3 because n-3 is too low in most people's diets. As long as n-3 wins the competition, saturated fats won't hurt you. And, for carbohydrate addicts, fats are better fuel than carbs because fats won't cause the blood sugar swings that lead to carb addiction.
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