Nutrition is a subject often open to debate, but the one thing that everyone worth their salt (and even those who aren’t!) agree on, is that trans-fats are bad for you. These artificial fats that your body doesn’t recognise, remain in your blood unprocessed, and clearing it usually means using up HDL or High Density Lipoprotein. HDL cholesterol acts as a scavenger, clearing out other harmful fats and sending them to the liver. So when you use up excess HDL, the depleting levels can cause bad cholesterol, blood pressure, heart disease, and also Type 2 diabetes.
The World Health Organization has recommended an upper limit of less than 1 percent of total energy intake through trans fat. In 2004, Denmark was the first country to take cognisance of this and restrict the quantity of trans fat to less than two percent. On June 16 last year, the United States Food and Drug Administration declared trans fats as unsafe, and set a three-year limit for all companies to rid their products of ingredients with trans fats. In India, in July 2013, FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) stated that trans fat content in products like vanaspati needed to be brought down to 10 percent. In July this year, that number was brought down to five percent.
Foods high in trans fats include those deep fried in hydrogenated vegetable oil like french fries and potato nuggets. Also avoid margarine, cake mixes and frosting, pie-crusts, biscuits and non-dairy creamer.
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