This year we say goodbye to partially hydrogenated oils(transfat)

In june of this year the FDA ban on partially hydrogenated oils will fully take effect, removing the “Generally recognized as safe” label from them and effectively removing them from our food supply.

This is something I and many people are happy about, and its also the last chance I am going to have to cover this topic so here we go.

PHOs long story short are oils they though a chemical process called hydrogenation, they have a longer shelf life are solid at room temperatures and gained popularity as a healthy replacement for saturated fats, which as you can see wasn’t really the case, they increase LDL while lowering HDL and are very heavily linked with heart disease. One of the insidious regulations that surrounded PHOs is that products containing less the .5 grams a serving could claim to be trans-fat free, which effectively meant if you listed a serving of pure trans-fat at .49 grams you could call that trans-fat free

Now one important thing to know when talking about trans-fats is not all trans-fats are bad, PHOs are bad, however some naturally occurring trans-fats such as Vaccenic acid and CLA not only do not have the same negative effects on blood lipids but also have some health benefits, but since partially hydrogenated oil and transfat have been used interchangeably quite often they are usually grouped together and it is often used erroneously by vegans as a point against beef.

So yes here’s to one good thing happening this year.

Good riddance. War era mistake, maybe thought to be necessary at that time but it was a terrible decision for human health.

About damn time! I’ve read that margarine was linked to depression. Honestly, after this long I didn’t think they’d ever actually do it. Good to hear though.

And they are banned.

1 Like