Trans-fat free: Healthy or not?

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Posted by Susan Bowerman, M.S., RD, CSSD, CSOWM, FAND – Senior Director, Worldwide Nutrition Education and Training

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Not all fats are created equal.

Just because foods have less fat, sugar, or calories doesn’t make them healthy foods.

Remember when carbs were the bad guys? The food manufacturers do, I’m sure. A few years back, when everyone was doing the Atkins thing, we were deluged with everything from the impossible-sounding low-carb bread to carb-counter’s chocolate fudge. Trouble was, everyone was too focused on the details. In keeping close tabs on their carbs, they lost track of calories. And many of them gained weight.

The latest nutritional example of not seeing the forest for the trees has to do with trans fats. As concerns have emerged about the negative health consequences of consuming these primarily man-made fats, food manufacturers have been falling all over themselves to eliminate trans fats from their products.

But on the heels of all this culinary re-engineering came concerns that food manufacturers were simply replacing trans fats in their cakes and cookies with equally bad-for-you saturated fats.

Not to worry, says a recent report. After reviewing 58 reformulated foods from the supermarket and 25 fast-food restaurant offerings, it was found that the new-and-improved foods had significantly less trans fats. On top of that, 65% of the supermarket foods and 90% of the restaurant foods had saturated fat levels that were lower, unchanged or only slightly higher than before. That sounds like good news.

But here’s the catch. The foods in the survey included margarine, French fries, fish sticks, cookies, donuts, cakes, fried chicken, burgers and burritos—not exactly a catalogue of health foods. Reducing the trans fats in fried chicken is like spiking root beer with vitamins. Just because it’s “better”, doesn’t make it good for you.

Sure, reducing trans fats in foods is good idea. But you’d also eat a lot fewer trans fats if you just ate less margarine, French fries, fish sticks, cookies, donuts, cakes, fried chicken, burgers and burritos.

You can bet you won’t get any trans fats if you swap in a fresh peach for dessert instead of a cream-filled vanilla cupcake. Here’s what else you won’t get: bleached white flour, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, artificial flavors, a laundry list of preservatives, two teaspoons of grease and five teaspoons of sugar.

We need to look at foods as a whole, not as a source (or not) of individual ingredients that we’re trying to eat more of (or avoid). Whole natural foods are complex mixtures of all sorts of good things – designed and packaged as mother nature intended.

Susan Bowerman, M.S., RD, CSSD, CSOWM, FAND – Senior Director, Worldwide Nutrition Education and Training
Susan is the Senior Director of Worldwide Nutrition Education and Training at Herbalife, where she is responsible for the development of nutrition education and training materials, and is one of the primary authors of the Herbalife-sponsored blog, www.discovergoodnutrition.com. She is a Registered Dietitian and holds two Board Certifications from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics as a Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics, and a Certified Specialist in Obesity and Weight Management. Susan is also a Fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Susan graduated with distinction in biology from the University of Colorado, and received her master’s degree in Food Science and Nutrition from Colorado State University. She then completed her dietetic internship at the University of Kansas. Susan has taught extensively and developed educational programs targeted to individuals, groups and industry in her areas of expertise, including health promotion, weight management and sports nutrition. Prior to her role at Herbalife, she was the assistant director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, and has held appointments as adjunct professor in nutrition at Pepperdine University and as lecturer in nutrition in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Susan was a consultant to the (then) Los Angeles Raiders for six seasons, and was a contributing columnist for the Los Angeles Times Health Section for two years. She is a co-author of 23 research papers, 14 book chapters, and was a co-author of two books for the public: “What Color is Your Diet?” and “The L.A. Shape Diet” by Dr. David Heber, published by Harper Collins in 2001 and 2004, respectively.