Avoid Hydrogenated Fats
Like The Plague

Hydrogenated fats are commonly found in margarine, common cooking oil, shortening, products containing interesterified fats, and in almost all processed products that have fat or "partially-hardened" fat as an ingredient.

Here is what you need to know about the process of hydrogenation.

`For optimal health, it appears important to eliminate the intake of margarine and other foods that contain trans-fatty acids and hydrogenated oils [which includes most processed foods].

`Hydrogenation – the addition of hydrogen molecules – changes the structure of natural essential fatty acids from their original cis- configuration to an unnatural trans- configuration. These trans- fatty acids interfere with the body’s ability to utilize essential fatty acids.

`Many researchers and nutritionists have been concerned about the health effects of margarine since it was first introduced. Although many Americans assume that they do their bodies good by consuming margarine instead of butter and saturated fats, in truth, they are doing more harm. Margarine and other hydrogenated vegetable oils not only raise LDL cholesterol (the “bad” form of cholesterol linked to heart disease); they also lower the protective HDL (“good”) cholesterol level, interfere with essential fatty acid metabolism, and are suspected of causing certain cancers, including breast cancer.’ (Dr. Michael Murray, N.D., and Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, N.D., Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, p.52)

The following statement confirms that hydrogenated fats have no place in the diet.

`With an enemy as dangerous and harmful to health as hydrogenation, I make no compromise. There can be no compromise. I maintain it has no place in any food used by humans or animals. Once the oil has gone through the process of hydrogenation, it is no longer an oil but a plastic, a celluloid or perhaps I may stretch a point and call it a fat. I believe the end result is a useless, counterfeit, synthetic, plastic, celluloid-like, harmful chemical concoction that is an insult to human intelligence. Some of the oils used in margarine might have been vegetable at the onset, but any one or all of the 18 or more devitalizing processes to which it was subjected, destroyed any vestige of naturalness and turned it into a synthetic chemical or plastic.

`Yes, I maintain that hydrogenation is more dangerous than drugs, more dangerous than sprays and more dangerous than chemical fertilizers. I clearly emphasize that hydrogenation is a greater danger to our health and to our well-being than any other factor in our society.' (J. H. Tobe, Margarine and Your Heart Attack, pp. 15, 8, 39, 1).

For more information please visit this link.

Warning: Interesterified fats are said to contain a lower level of trans-fats but are often (maybe always) produced from fully hydrogenated fats and, as such, must be avoided.

Please use the BACK key on your browser to return to the previous page.