Remember when trans fats were supposed to be good for you?

William McCarthy is an adjunct professor of public health and co-director of the Center for Population Health and Health Disparities at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He once worked for the Quaker Oats company. His current research includes a three-year trial to compare the traditional calorie-counting approach to weight control with the new high-fruit, high-vegetable MyPlate.gov approach (based on the DASH diet). This piece was posted on Zócalo Public Square on March 24. Thinking L.A. is a partnership of UCLA and Zócalo Public Square.     Not so long ago, it was near impossible to avoid trans fats — more widely known in food ingredient lists as partially hydrogenated oil. Trans fats, which were processed to mimic saturated fat, were found in almost all the cakes, cookies, pies, pastries, and potato chips we bought in supermarkets and chain restaurants. But late last year, the Food and Drug Administration declared that trans fats are no longer “generally regarded as safe.” The introduction of any new food product that contains more than trace amounts of trans fats now requires explicit FDA approval.   We foolishly thought that our experiment to improve on Mother Nature’s options for fatty food and replace saturated fat with “healthier” trans fats was a win-win. But trans fats have turned out to carry some of the same health risks as saturated fats, and it has taken an unfortunate amount of time for that to become clear.   Trans fats don’t have...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news