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FDA no longer recognized "partially hydrogenated vegetable oils" as "generally safe"

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Jeff7 said:
How about incompetent, easily-bought idiots, as well as former industry executives who are now regulating their old friends?
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That's actually pretty close to my opinion, so I'm not going to argue with it. What I take issue with are simple-minded people that require "simple" answers, like there being just one vast conspiracy, like this is some comic book world we live in. Reality tends to be a lot more petty and chaotic than that.
 
Ruptga said:
Help me out here, is our government run by a bunch of incompetent idiots, or a vast coalition of conspirators? I see a lot of people say both of these mutually exclusive things at different times, and I'm just wondering which one it is. But for now I'm just going to stick with Hanlon's razor.
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Both. You have your Frank Underwoods and your Donald Blyths, with the occasional isolated good person.
 
Grooveriding said:
The shame is that yes you can irresponsibly eat yourself into CAD. But there are those genetically predisposed to high cholesterol due to their liver function that find themselves in exactly the same place except they can otherwise be in the best of health. What you see in CAD is many people are genetically disposed, not irresponsible with their health.

I started on a daily dose of lipitor several years ago and have never been obese and always in pretty good shape. I've always had high LDL and low HDL though. My grandfather had several bypasses and my father has had stents. It's in the cards for me to wind up with CAD and the best I can do is a regime of prevention and routine stress tests.

TLDR. I don't see how this will have a huge impact on those eating themselves to sickness.
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You probably just like the taste of trans fat and don't even realize how much you are eating.
 
SagaLore said:
As far as I know, trans fat does not exist naturally whatsoever.
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From the American Heart Association website

There are two broad types of trans fats found in foods: naturally-occurring and artificial trans fats. Naturally-occurring trans fats are produced in the gut of some animals and foods made from these animals (e.g., milk and meat products) may contain small quantities of these fats. Artificial trans fats (or trans fatty acids) are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid.
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Ruptga said:
That's actually pretty close to my opinion, so I'm not going to argue with it. What I take issue with are simple-minded people that require "simple" answers, like there being just one vast conspiracy, like this is some comic book world we live in. Reality tends to be a lot more petty and chaotic than that.
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And I think that chaos is what helps keep things from getting really bad.



(I get the idea that our two ideas of the situation aren't actually all that far apart.)
 
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I spent most of my life believing and eating Trans fats because they were supposedly better for you than saturated fats.
 
Ruptga said:
This article I read says the Grocery Manufacturers Association says they do. Of course, given that the GMA is just a lobbying front for the people that the FDA exists to regulate...
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Lets just go straight to the actual study data:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/088915759290037K

Looks like lamb is an example with "high" levels of naturally occuring trans fat (0.56% of the fat in lamb is naturally occuring trans fat). In this case, the trans fat is conjugated dienoic derivatives of linoleic acid. The percent just drops from there.

So, yes it is naturally occuring, but not at any really meaningful level.
 
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Jeff7 said:
Lard-cooked potato chips.....like starch-based heroin, good god. Also tough to find: God bless our vegetable oil overlords.




Use the same thing, rebrand it, bribe public officials.
(It's kind of surprising that the FDA did this at all.)
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FDA only did this because they were being sued.
 
darkewaffle said:
Afaik trans fats show a pretty strong link with heart disease which is the primary impetus. No idea about cancer.
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Actually the reason we have trans fat through vegetable oils is because of the big OH NOESS!!!! FAT!!!! scare that the government induced decades ago. We're now realizing that animals are actually good for us in moderate amounts, and the "low-fat" diet was bad for us.

Go figure, government wants to be the one to fix the solution to a problem they caused.
 
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BoberFett said:
Actually the reason we have trans fat through vegetable oils is because of the big OH NOESS!!!! FAT!!!! scare that the government induced decades ago. We're now realizing that animals are actually good for us in moderate amounts, and the "low-fat" diet was bad for us.

Go figure, government wants to the solution to a problem they caused.
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History of trans fat:
http://cspinet.org/transfat/timeline.html

1) Invented outside of the US
2) Incorporated by companies because it is cheap, versatile, and long lasting. This was done decades before there was scientific evidence against it.
3) Customers liked it because it allowed solids to spread (margarine is spreadable right out of the fridge while butter is not easilly spread while cold)
4) When conclusive studies came out against trans fat, the FDA started a slow process of requiring labeling through now banning it.

Yep, all four signs point to it being the US government's fault. :whiste:

About the best you can do is to say WWII and the butter shortages that switched people to margarine was government fault.
 
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BoberFett said:
Actually the reason we have trans fat through vegetable oils is because of the big OH NOESS!!!! FAT!!!! scare that the government induced decades ago. We're now realizing that animals are actually good for us in moderate amounts, and the "low-fat" diet was bad for us.

Go figure, government wants to be the one to fix the solution to a problem they caused.
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Thank you!

Some Commie socialists claim it was the food manufacturing industry that foisted this crap upon us.

Thanks for straightening everyone out.
 
BoberFett said:
Actually the reason we have trans fat through vegetable oils is because of the big OH NOESS!!!! FAT!!!! scare that the government induced decades ago. We're now realizing that animals are actually good for us in moderate amounts, and the "low-fat" diet was bad for us.

Go figure, government wants to be the one to fix the solution to a problem they caused.
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Animal fat is not equal to trans fat. Two different things.

As far as government involvement goes, if you didn't have any government involvement in commercial activities you'd have a very messed up situation. How would you like to fly ungoverned skies? Drive roads with no cops? Some regulation is necessary, folks.
 
Muse said:
Animal fat is not equal to trans fat. Two different things.

As far as government involvement goes, if you didn't have any government involvement in commercial activities you'd have a very messed up situation. How would you like to fly ungoverned skies? Drive roads with no cops? Some regulation is necessary, folks.
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Well what BoberFett was saying is not so much that animal fat equals trans fat, but rather, the anti-fat craze a few decades ago led to the need for trans-fat. Margarine and other products like it didn't come into existence until fat became the enemy, so trans fat was necessary to create a stable product and it didn't quite report the same as saturated fat.

That and the convenience craze, which offered more spreadable products.

Which is also why we still have so many "low fat!" products that are simply replacing those fats with fillers, starches and other carbohydrates to hold the product together. I hate that Low Fat is still a thing, because I'm trying to have the opposite, more fat and less sugar. But almost everything Low Fat is chock full of sugar.

It's kind of funny. Our anti-fat scare actually made us fatter, because carbs are far worse and also creates a rebound effect which increases a desire to eat more.
 
Margarine and trans fats have been around for a hundred years. A tangentially related craze 20 years ago doesn't mean it became an issue 20 years ago.
 
Rakehellion said:
This is so transphobic.
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*claps*

This shit is straight up poison. Shame we've been eating it for so long.

I recently started buying organic peanut butter because the non organic has small (very, but it's still there) amounts of trans. I hate the organic stuff, it's so damn liquid. But I'll stick to it.
 
Muse said:
Animal fat is not equal to trans fat. Two different things.
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I was at Costco today and was looking at their Angus Cheeseburger.

It has 27g total fat, 10g saturated and 1g trans fat. But since they round to the nearest half gram, that could between .5g and 1.5g.

If we look at it in terms of a percentage, that means it has between 1.8% and 5.5% trans fat - as a percentage of total fat.
 
They are undoubtedly different fats. Trans simply means it has a carbon double bond in the fatty acid chain. Each source of fats has a different composition of fatty acids that affects how its metabolized. The saturated fat in butter and palm oil for example are not equivalent. Palm oil is much worse. The more solid the fat is at room/body temperature the worse it is for you, generally.

Butter really isn't that bad. Margarine is much worse. Pure partially hydrogenated margarine doesn't melt until who knows... like 150F.
 
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destrekor said:
Well what BoberFett was saying is not so much that animal fat equals trans fat, but rather, the anti-fat craze a few decades ago led to the need for trans-fat. Margarine and other products like it didn't come into existence until fat became the enemy, so trans fat was necessary to create a stable product and it didn't quite report the same as saturated fat.
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the anti-fat crazy blows my mind... half the stuff probably ended up with more calories in the end, since they could just dump a pound of sugar into everything and still be able to label it as "fat free!"
 
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