Trans fats are highly destructive for your health. The Mayo Clinic states that trans fat can lower your good cholesterol and raise your bad cholesterol. High cholesterol levels are a major risk factor for coronary artery disease and heart attacks, the leading cause of death for both men and women. They report that doctors consider trans fat to be the "worst [fat] of them all." New York City has banned restaurants from using trans fats. If you are trying to improve your cholesterol levels or simply trying to lead a healthful lifestyle, you should become familiar with which foods have trans fatty acids.
Margarine
Margarine is a major source of trans fatty acids. The University of Pennsylvania Office of Health Education reports that margarine is loaded with saturated fat and trans fat. Stick margarine has 2.8 grams of trans fat per tablespoon, and 2.1 grams of saturated fat, according to UPENN. Margarine is consider to be so bad that The American Heart Association actually recommends butter instead. Ideally, don't use either. Cooking with olive oil or canola oil, which are rich in healthful unsaturated fats, are much better choices, according to Healthcastle.com.
Fast Food
Foods at most leading fast food chains are also sources rich in trans fatty acids. The University of Pennsylvania reports that a medium order of fries will contain 14.5 grams of trans fat. The KFC "Original Recipe" chicken dinner has 7 grams of trans fat. Even when fast food restaurants do not prepare and cook their food in trans fat, the french fries are often partially fried in trans fat before arriving at the restaurant. Grilled chicken sandwiches are often not safe from trans fat either. Most fast food chains slather margarine on their grill when cooking grilled chicken patties. In order to select the "best" fast food option, you will often have to read the complete nutritional menu food listings, which are available on the restaurant's website.
Any Foods Made in Partially Hydrogenated Oil
The American Heart Association reports that Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, required trans fat to listed on nutrition labels in January of 2006. Still, many foods do not have to list their trans fat content if they are below a half gram per serving. These foods can actually list their trans fat content as zero, while they might have 0.4 grams of trans fat. Butter is an example of this. The University of Pennsylvania Office of Health Education notes that butter has 0.3 grams of trans fat per tablespoon. Nutritional labels on butter list trans-fat as 0 grams per serving, however. If a food item lists "partially hydrogenated oil" in the ingredients list, it has trans fat.
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