The Truth About Trans Fats

The other day someone asked, “Why are trans-fats so bad for you? Is there any real truth in all the media talk about how really bad they are?”

Answer: YES!

Trans fats are man-made and are uncommon in nature. They arrived on the scene as a preservative and only exist to do two things:\

1. Make food taste unnaturally better
2. Increase food shelf life

Trans fats are found in all the foods you and I love to eat! Cookies, pizza, doughnuts, packaged snacks, crackers, candy bars, and anything that sounds awesome but could make you feel terrible. These foods contain margarine, hydrogenated vegetable oil, or vegetable shortening in their ingredients. They are everywhere. STOP EATING THEM!

TRANS FATS HARDEN YOUR CELLS

The walls of your cells are made out of two layers of fatty acids called a phospholipid bilayer.

The small tails within the walls are loose and moveable, which make the cell more fluid and permeable; this allows nutrients to go in and toxins to get out of the cell. Eating trans fats will harden the tails and make them stick together, making the walls stiffen up, harden, and impermeable. This in turn keeps toxins in and the good stuff out.

TRANS FATS KEEP YOU FROM ABSORBING OXYGEN AND NUTRIENTS

All cells need two things to live - oxygen and nutrients.

You must have oxygen and nutrients in your cells to provide fuel for the production of energy for cell metabolism. Without these two, your cells can do nothing. If the walls of the cells are too hard and glued together from trans fats, the oxygen and nutrients cannot pass through to the inner portions of your cells. Your cells then cannot create energy since there is no fuel source getting to the power producers of your cells, the mitochondria.

Trans fats are very harmful to the body, simply because they can keep the cell from healing, detoxing, repairing. Think about it, if you could not get any oxygen or food what would happen to you? You would DIE! What would happen if you couldn’t detox any threatening substance from your cells? You would get sick and stay sick. That’s what happens to cells, but since we have trillions of them, a few million dying off here and there doesn’t seem to bother us while we are young. What happens as we age? The lack of energy production and cellular slowdown starts to show up.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF HARDENED CELLS

• hypoxia - chronic low blood oxygen levels
• chronic lowered immune system - colds and sinus issues
• chronic fatigue
• high cholesterol
• chronic allergies
• atherosclerosis
• low libido

APPLICATION

Here are 4 things to start doing now.

1. Avoid any foods and breads that contain any trans fats
2. Avoid foods that have rancid fats, like peanut butter, since they can have the same effect
3. Eat good saturated fat sources like organic butter and coconut butter
4. Find good essential fatty acids (EFA) to take  --- DHA (UDO’S 3-6-9 blend is a great source), ALA, GLA. These will keep your cells soft and pliable

Check out this list of some good fatty acid sources you can look into and try. Use them in cooking and sometimes take them by the spoonful to get your daily source of EFA’s.

• Coconut oil
• Pumpkin seeds / oil
• Sesame seed / oil
• Flax seed oil
• Hemp oil
• Organic butter
• Olive oil
• Sunflower oil

Hopefully this article is helpful! Check out some more of my Nutrition posts and please let me know if you have any questions in the comments below!

Be well,
Dr. Motley