Let me get this straight, if I read all the amazing reports.....remove trans fat from the food supply, and obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, and a host of other ailments will all magically disappear. The real story is a little more complicated - but not by much!. While getting rid of trans fat is a health plus, it's only part of the story.
Unless you cut down ALL sources of fat, you won't be saving calories, losing weight, or improving your health much at all. In our country, we make the mistake of selecting the information we want to use, and ignoring the rest. In fact, if we cut down on our daily total fat intake, the kinds of fat we consume would be less of an issue.
For trans fat, what is the substitute? Butter in baked goods? Or, olive oil to fry your chicken instead of shortening?
Until we decide to cut down ALL sources of fat in our diets to promote better health, we're still fooling ourselves.
It's easy to cut out trans fat from the diet, but really hard to cut fat out of the diet (we can always substitute a heart healthy fat!). Yes, it's a plus to limit trans fat in the food supply - to help support better food choices - but that is only one health factor that doesn't replace other healthful habits.
I remember doing a Today Show segment a couple of years ago, when this first became a priority in the world of nutrition. While there are some trans fats present in foods naturally (like beef), most of it is found in processed cakes, cookies, and pastries, as well as restaurant fried foods (from fish, to potatoes to onion rings). In this short time, many restaurants and food producers have voluntarily replaced trans fat in their food products. A great thing for consumers - especially those consuming fast foods!
If we simply had smaller portions - and cut down out fat to 25% of calories or less - we wouldn't really have to worry about the source of that fat. Look at the French, for example. No foods are off limits. Butter, cream, pastries -all in amounts we look at as "puny".
Can a ban be effective? While the efforts in California (and other states) to ban trans fats are a step in the right direction, how can this even be enforced? What are we protecting ourselves from? Do we all change to butter?
Does this really help us make better food choices?
As a nation, we must "get a grip" on our total fat intake, and portion sizes - the big stuff. While the trans fat ban
is a plus - I hope this does not deter you and your family from making the important changes for long term health - cutting down on ALL sources of fat,, plus working on a stable weight, and being physically active.
Here's a brief history of trans fats
Trans fat is a man-made fat which basically is a process of converting liquid vegetable oil to a solid form. Sounded like a good idea decades ago - turn a heart-healthy fat into something that "seems" like butter. You can cook with it, it's got a lot of flavor, and helps extend the shelf life of packaged foods where it's found.
So, what could be wrong? It turns out that trans fat is a double whammy for the body. Rather than be "heart healthy", it appears to raise the "bad" cholesterol (LDL) and lower the "good" cholesterol (HL). Even the artery clogging saturated fat, like butter, only raises the bad cholesterol and doesn't alter the good one.
What do you think? Please post your thoughts!
译文:
要脂肪还是要胸围？
要脂肪还是要胸围？（达人指点题目啊）
让我把事情说明白点吧，如果我读遍了那些惊人的报告……去除食物中的反型脂肪，过度肥胖、糖尿病、高胆固醇和许多其他的疾病将神奇般地消失。真实情况却有点——但并未过于复杂。远离反型脂肪可以为你的健康加分——这仅仅是整个事情的部分情况。
除非断开所有的脂肪来源，否则你根本无法降低卡路里、减轻体重或是改善健康状况。国人总是会犯这样的错误：只挑选对自己有用的信息却忽视信息的其他部分。事实上，如果我们降低自身日常的脂肪摄入量，那么我们消耗的脂肪将会入不敷出。
可以用什么来代替反型脂肪呢？烤焙食物中的牛油？又或者用来代替起酥油煎炸鸡肉的橄榄油？直至我们为了倡导更好的健康而决定断开食谱上的所有脂肪来源，我们一直都在自欺欺人。将反型脂肪从日常食物中排除是一件易事，然而要从中剔除脂肪却相当困难——我们总能找到预防心脏病的脂肪替代品。那就是对食物供应中的反型脂肪设置限制——此举让我们获得更为丰富的食物选择——但这仅仅是一个并不能取代其他健康生活习惯的因素。
我记得好几年前拍摄《今日秀》，那正是该理念在世界营养学界中抬头并有大行其道之势的时候。那时侯，反型脂肪很自然地被运用到食物（如牛肉）上，大部分都是一些加工糕点、饼干和面粉糕饼，以及一些餐馆中的油炸食物（鱼，土豆以及油葱圈）。在这短短的几年间，很多餐馆和食物生产商们都已经自发地换掉了他们食物产品中的反型脂肪。这对消费者而言真是一件天大好事啊，尤其对那些热爱速食的朋友。
如果我们只不过缩小一下分量，将脂肪摄取降低到卡路里的25%或者更少，那么我们将不必对反型脂肪过于担忧了。就拿法国来说吧。没有什么食物不受到类似的限制。牛油，乳酪，面粉糕饼——所有的量在我们眼中都显得“微不足道”。
禁令能否有效地执行呢？加利福尼亚州（以及其他州）在禁止反型脂肪方面所取得的成果固然令人欣慰，然而此事怎能强迫实行呢？我们究竟使自身免于什么？我们都该改吃牛油啦？
禁令果真能够让我们获得更为丰富的食物选择吗？
作为一个国家，我们必须对总的脂肪摄入量以及比例——原材料的进口进行严格的把关。但如果真的要实施反型脂肪的禁令，我希望该禁令不会使你和你的家人出于长远健康的考虑而作出重要的转变：断开所有脂肪来源，为保持稳定的体重而进行额外的运动以及保持身体的活跃。
这里有一个关于反型脂肪的简介：
反型脂肪是一种人工合成的脂肪，主要是对炼过而容易变质的植物油进行再加工，使其不容易氧化变质。几十年前，这似乎是一个不错的创举：将低脂脂肪转化为“看起来”像牛油的东东。你可以用它来煮东西，闻起来更香。它更是可以延长袋装食品的保存期限。
既然这样，哪里有问题啦？事实证明了反型脂肪对身体具有双重危害。虽然说是“低脂”，它却会增高“坏的”胆固醇（LDL胆固醇，即低密度脂蛋白胆固醇）并降低“好的”胆固醇（HL胆固醇，即高密度脂蛋白胆固醇）。甚至是动脉阻塞饱和脂肪。就算牛油也只是增高坏的胆固醇，但至少不会改变好的胆固醇。
你怎么想呢？欢迎跟帖发表意见。
补充阅读：
新闻热词：trans fat 反式脂肪酸
来源：英语点津
近日，全球最大的快餐集团麦当劳公开承认，根据美国去年年底起用的新方法检测结果显示，在每份麦当劳薯条中，反式脂肪酸含量从过去的6克增加到8克，整体脂肪酸总含量从过去的25克增加到30克。每份麦当劳炸薯条中不利于身体健康的反式脂肪酸含量比以前增加了1/3。美国食品与药物管理局（FDA）称，反式脂肪酸可增加人体"不良胆固醇"，增加患心脏病的风险，这再次引发了外界对食品安全的质疑。
外电如下：The Financial Times said that McDonald's revealed a new reading on the level of the potentially harmful substance under new U.S. government rules on food labels to specify the level of the trans fat in food products. McDonald's has upped its estimates for the trans fat in its french fries by one-third, according to a published report. The newspaper reports that the company is now reporting that a larger order of its french fries have eight grams of trans fats, rather than the previously-reported six grams.
新闻中的trans fat就是"反式脂肪酸"。Tran-在英文中通常作为前缀和其它词相互搭配，表示through（贯通），如：transcontinental（横贯大陆的）; 表示change（变化；移动），如：transliterate（翻译）；表示across， beyond（横跨，越过），如：transpolar（横跨南极的）。
本句中的tans是化学用语，表示having a pair of identical atoms on opposite sides of two atoms linked by a double bond（反式的），指"由双键连接的两个原子的相对两侧有一对相同的原子的"，其存在于植物性奶油、马铃薯片、沙拉酱、饼干以及薯条等食物中，这种物质也可以通过氢化过程合成。另外，fat在这里指fatty acid（脂肪酸）。
反式脂肪
Trans Fat在台湾叫做“反式脂肪”,所有动植物油脂都是由脂肪酸组成的，天然脂肪酸都是顺型(Cis－)的，而人工合成的脂肪酸是以植物油，经微生物及工业制程加以氢化而成的，称之为反型脂肪酸(Trans－fatty acid)。又叫转化脂肪、反型脂肪、氢化植物油、氢化棕榈油、植物乳化油、植物酥油等。人本身不会合成反型脂肪。
反型脂肪不易氧化变质、可高温重复油炸，而且可让食物更酥脆，不易变黑，卖相好。因此受到许多食品业者采用，一些须油炸、烘烤、酥制的食物例如炸鸡、薯条、饼干、洋芋片、派饼、苏打饼、微波加热爆米花及人造奶油等都会使用。(newstarnet.com)反型脂肪可以升高人体内的胆固醇水平，是诱发冠状动脉疾病的罪魁之一，还会影响身体对必须脂肪酸的代谢，致使细胞膜的合成、荷尔蒙的制造产生障碍。(newstarnet.com)
专家指出，反型脂肪是人类冠状动脉疾病的重要诱因之一。研究发现，反型脂肪能升高人体内(坏的)低密度脂蛋白胆固醇的含量，同时降低(好的)高密度脂蛋白胆固醇。研究显示，如果每天食用5克反型脂肪，若干年后一个人心脏病的发病几率就会增加25％。(newstarnet.com)
通过CTV和环球邮报的调查，加拿大的肯德基中出售的炸鸡（又叫做爆米花鸡）(Popcorn Chicken)以及油炸餐中，含有令人震惊的18.6克的反型脂肪，那意味着如果您每天食用，在若干年后您身患心脏疾病的几率要高出一倍（100%）。(所以现在很多国家都要求食品上必须表示trans fat的含量，甚至要求不能含有trans fat。看来对于我们尽量少吃快餐油炸食品（fried foods like french fries and fried chicken, doughnuts, cookies, pastries and crackers）是明智的选择。