Nutrition

Question

I heard in a radio spot in the summer of 2005 that as of Jan 2006, companies that make food products in which nutritional information data appears must include a new entry for amount of "trans fats," extremely unhealthy compounds. I also remember hearing in the same report, that one of the chief sources of trans fats in [processed] foods are polyhydrogenated (sp?) oils (PO), e.g soybean, cottonseed, vegetable. After this report, on NPR I think, I started checking ingredients lists for PO's and avoiding product containing these oils. Recently, I have started seeing the trans fat entry on some labels and have also noticed in some cases the presence of PO's in products reporting 0 grams of trans fat. Please advise on whether PO's are still worth avoiding even if the product reports no trans fat.

Answer

<DIV>Hi Michael,</DIV> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV> <DIV>Hydrogenated oils and trans-fats are both best avoided.</DIV> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV> <DIV>Using Google and the search string