What are Trans Fats and
Why Coconut Oil is
the Envy of Other Fats

What are trans fats? Trans fats or trans fatty acids are the unfortunate result of an attempt to make unsaturated fatty acids more saturated.

Hydrogenation is a process that transforms unsaturated fatty acids like soybean and corn oils into more saturated fatty acids like coconut oil. Problem is, this creates unnatural trans fatty acids that are foreign to your body and cause all kinds of health problems like heart disease.

These man-made trans fats have long been shown to increase the risk factors of atherogenesis. Positive relationships between trans fat intake and coronary heart disease are well documented.

Trans fats have no right to enter your body, let alone stay there. But why tamper with nature and make unsaturated fats more saturated in the first place?

Because saturated fats, of which coconut oil is the star, give foods many attractive properties. Saturated fats are good at preserving foods, naturally. They don't go rancid as polyunsaturated fats like soybean and safflower oils do. The food industry have known this fact for decades.

Also, increasing the saturation through technology is cheaper than using animal or tropical oils rich in saturated fats. Your health had taken a backseat to profits. Sounds familiar?

Coconut oil became, so to speak, the envy of producers of other fats. None other is more saturated and ultimately, healthier, than medium chain fatty acid or MCFA-loaded coconut oil.

Mensink, R. P. and Katan, M. B. Effect of dietary transfatty acids on high density and low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in healthy subjects. N. Eng. J. Med. 323(1999):439-445.

Willet, W. Editorial: Challenges for public health nutrition in the 1990s. Am. J. Public Health. 80(1990):1295-1298.

Pietinen, P., Ascherio, A., Korhonen, P., et al. Intake of fatty acids and risk of coronary heart disease in a cohort of Finnish men. The Alpha-Tocopherol-BetaCarotene Cancer Prevention Study. Am. J. Epidemiol. 145(1997):876-887.