TRANS FATS!!! Attacking a heart near you

Welcome back everyone. My apologies for the blogular silence. There is an enemy amongst us and he's in our food. I'm talking about trans fats. This is one bad customer. What is it? Scientifically speaking (and not for long) when a fat molecule is double bonded between carbon atoms the bond results in fewer bonds to hydrogen and thus, its unsaturated; which is another name for trans fat. He's a bad dude because increased consumption of this culprit can lead to stroke and risk of heart failure. Trans fats raise LDL (bad cholesterol) and decreases our HDL (good cholesterol).Talk about a double whammy.

So where does this brigand hang his cholesterol abusing hat? Pie crusts, pizza crusts, biscuits, donuts, crackers, cookies and more. Ever wonder why these things end up in our foods and ultimately in us? I hate to appear conspiratorial but one must look to one's government. Get this: In the United States if a food has less than 0.5 grams of trans fat the manufacturer is allowed to place a label on the product that reads, '0 trans fats'. How do you like them apples? 0.5 grams may seem minuscule but suppose you eat a variety of those '0' labels-they add up, no?

Also look at your friendly food manufacturer who is not unlike a drug dealer. His bottom line is the bottom line-cost. Trans fats are easy to use as well as inexpensive. They cut our food like a drug dealer does his supply to expand it. So, once a gain we have the government in bed with the food company and WE pay the fiddler.

But let us not leave out some restaurants and fast food joints. Many of them use T-fats because their commercial fryers allow them to use the fat/grease over and over again. Yummy! Even in the good old days when we knew nothing and used real butter at least we didn't re-use the old butter. Where's the humanity? N.B. However, in my home we did re-use bacon fat. Ah, the 1970's-it was a different time, wasn't it?

Here's our bottom line fit friends; read the label...as best you can in a society where fraud and false advertising is legal, and keep exercising. Buy organic when you can and anything with a laundry list of ingredients; stop, drop it, and roll on out of there. And if you'd like to get more proactive write your local government representative and demand change. Stay fit, your life depends on it.