Raising HDL By Lowering Trans Fat

Trans Fat Lowers HDL. Trans fat is another term for hydrogenated vegetable oil. Trans fat is bad for your health because trans fat lowers HDL. Trans fat is found in large amounts in French Fries (fast food), doughnuts, shortening (like Crisco), cheap margarine (none in butter), potato chips, and candy bars. Trans fat gives crackers and cookies their crack (cracking noise). In general, to avoid trans fat avoid fried foods and choose baked, broiled, or steamed foods instead.

Avoid Palm Oil

Avoiding Trans fat means choosing food products made with vegetable and other plant oils. Unfortunately Palm oil is substituted for trans fat. Palm oil comes from the fruit of the Palm tree – one of the few foods orangutans live on. Palm farmers first remove the forest the orangutans live in, grow Palm trees, the orangutans try to eat from the Palm tree farm, the farmers kill the orangutans. Please don’t buy food products with Palm oil. If you’re one to avoid saturated fat, Palm oil is a saturated fat. Alternatives to Palm oil are corn oil, canola oil, and peanut oil, and especially olive oil.

Trans Fat Is Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil

Trans fat is made by overheating vegetable oil and adding certain chemicals in order to add hydrogen atoms to the chemical structure of the vegetable oil molecules. The process saturates the vegetable oil molecules with hydrogen atoms, making the vegetable oil saturated fat. The process also makes the vegetable oil high in free radicals. Trans fats lowers HDL and raises free radical level – just like smoking. Trans fat, hydrogenated vegetable oil, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and “vegetable lard” are all the same thing.

Trans Fat On Food Labels

Since January of 2006, all food labels must list the trans fat content of the product. You want the number of grams of trans fats to be very low, preferably zero, but at least less than 1.0 grams per serving.

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