Partially hydrogenated oils....WTF!!!!!

So I've doing some reading on partially hydrogenated oils. So far what I have read is that ANY oil that has been hydrogenized in any way is pretty much the worst thing a person can eat. Plus all partially hydrogenated oil =trans fat. Fine so I just won't buy foods that have trans fat, no big deal. Right? Well here's the kicker, even if the lable on the box says 0 trans fat that doesn't mean it's completely trans fat free. The reason being is that the USDA says as long as something is .5 or less per serving it doesn't have to be listed.
You can know if a food has trans fat by reading the ingredients on the box. If it says partially hydrogenated oil, of any kind, then it has trans fat. It may only be trace amounts per serving, but if you eat more then a serving then it adds up.
When I went grocery shopping this morning I was angry and astounded at how many pkged foods have partially hydrogenated oil in them. Several of these foods I buy on a regular basis, INCLUDING, Flintstone vitamins ( threw an almost full bottle in the trash when I found out ) and El Paso refried beans. I am very angry because I've been under the assumption that many of the things I have been buying were at least somewhat healthy. From now on I will be checking everything that I put in my shopping cart.
And what makes me more angry is that the food industries can and are getting away with this, not to mention all the other garbage thats being put into our food. It's one thing for a person to not care about what they eat and eat whatever they want , but when a person is trying to eat healthy and make sure their children are eating healthy as well, it's almost impossible when the food industry is hiding the poison and advertising it as healthy.

If anyone does not know the health dangers of trans fat and partially hydrogenated oils, please look it up. It will certainly change your mind about what you buy and what you eat.

Next up on your reading list...GMOs. And Monsanto.

Our food industry does NOT have our best interests in mind!!

I will look these up also. Thanks for that info. However, if I keep reading about all the poisons in our food I may just turn Amish...lol.

Watch the documentary "Food, Inc", gives you some insight into Monsanto, and also talks about the revolving door between the food industry and the FDA. Corporations control the FDA, so they can get a lot of stuff passed as safe that shouldn't be.

I'm thankful to live in Canada because, while far from perfect, our government has banned some things (like rBGH) that are still allowed in the US, and I believe they have banned transfats in schools, and they were at one point working on banning them all together in the country (which I hope happens!).

In the US you need to be even more wary because there is a lot more that is allowed to be put in your that is unsafe. The food industry doesn't care about your health, it cares about money.

Eat clean, buy local, buy organic, vote with your dollars. Don't buy anything with ingredients you don't recognize.

A friend of mine just bought baby formula in the states, the same brand and everything she buys here, because it's way cheaper there, and she fed it to her baby and it was making her baby sick, so she switched her back to the Canadian stuff and checked it out and it turns out there is a lot of stuff allowed in American baby formula that is banned in Canada... American babies who consume it right from birth can tolerate it, but a baby who had gotten used to not having those extra chemicals couldn't digest it. It's kind of scary!

So I've doing some reading on partially hydrogenated oils. So far what I have read is that ANY oil that has been hydrogenized in any way is pretty much the worst thing a person can eat. Plus all partially hydrogenated oil =trans fat. Fine so I just won't buy foods that have trans fat, no big deal. Right? Well here's the kicker, even if the lable on the box says 0 trans fat that doesn't mean it's completely trans fat free. The reason being is that the USDA says as long as something is .5 or less per serving it doesn't have to be listed.
You can know if a food has trans fat by reading the ingredients on the box. If it says partially hydrogenated oil, of any kind, then it has trans fat. It may only be trace amounts per serving, but if you eat more then a serving then it adds up.
When I went grocery shopping this morning I was angry and astounded at how many pkged foods have partially hydrogenated oil in them. Several of these foods I buy on a regular basis, INCLUDING, Flintstone vitamins ( threw an almost full bottle in the trash when I found out ) and El Paso refried beans. I am very angry because I've been under the assumption that many of the things I have been buying were at least somewhat healthy. From now on I will be checking everything that I put in my shopping cart.
And what makes me more angry is that the food industries can and are getting away with this, not to mention all the other garbage thats being put into our food. It's one thing for a person to not care about what they eat and eat whatever they want , but when a person is trying to eat healthy and make sure their children are eating healthy as well, it's almost impossible when the food industry is hiding the poison and advertising it as healthy.

If anyone does not know the health dangers of trans fat and partially hydrogenated oils, please look it up. It will certainly change your mind about what you buy and what you eat.

Stay away from grass fed beef too, higher in trans fats than grain fed beef

I believe you have that backwards. You want to go for grass-fed beef. Cows naturally eat grass, eating grains is unnatural, and it makes them sick, which is part of the reason they preemptively pump them full of antibiotics (that, and to stop them from getting sick in the overcrowded populations of factory farms).

Grass-fed beef that is raised naturally with no antibiotics or growth hormone is ideal, but that's not cost effective for the food industry. It takes four years to raise a beef cow, but with growth hormone they can do it in 6 months, which results in a bigger, fattier cow, and leads to the beef-eaters gaining weight, and developing illnesses and early puberty in kids due to the hormones, and also antibiotic resistance due to ingesting antibiotics in the meat.

If nothing else, get organic meat. It costs more, but when you weigh that against the costs of illness and obesity, it's worth it.

Please make up your mind, if you want all trans fats to be banned, i'm unsure why you would say grass fed beef is better, as it is higher in trans fats

They want to ban artificial transfats, like the stuff in margarine. I guess I should have been more specific. Most people when they talk about transfats are talking about things like hydrogenated oils and things that are modified and manufactured. Transfat in beef that is raised naturally is not going to hurt people. Eating food that is one molecule away from plastic is not so good for people.

I will take the transfat in grass-fed beef over the hormones and antibiotics in grain fed beef, and I will take butter over margarine because I like to eat real food, not artificial crap that is manufactured in factories.