Trans fat can be found in a variety of food items such as vegetable shortenings, some margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods, and other foods that are made with or fried in partially hydrogenated oils, especially fast food. In the above products, up to 45% of the fat content may be trans fat. Unlike the other three types of fat, trans fat is mainly formed when food companies turn liquid oils into fats that have a solid form. An example of this is margarine. To do this, they use a special process called partial hydrogenation.
Trans fats are found naturally in some animal-based foods, but they are more commonly found when partial hydrogenation occurs. Store-bought packaged foods must have the trans fat levels on the label of every package in the store and the food cannot have more than a certain level of trans fat. Fast food restaurants are not required to follow the same rules, which is why trans fats are still used extensively.
No comments:
Post a Comment