Poison Taco Shells

[BamaDave]

My wife just came home with a box of Old El Paso taco shells. The yellow corn shells have 50 calories apiece and 2.5 grams of trans-fats each! That means almost half of the calories of each shell come from trans fats. I think I'll fill them up with some rat poison just to seal the deal.

I'm surprised Old El Paso hasn't changed their recipe with the new labeling guidelines requiring statement of the amount of trans fats in their products. I guess they're banking on their customers not paying attention or caring about the content.

[Canadian_Bacon]

they probably are banking right, for every one person like 'us' there is 3 more who dont understand or dont care.

[RipStone]

The U.S. government should really ban trans-fat in foods. I believe Canada has, but corrent me if I'm wrong.

[Anubis]

The U.S. doesn't give a crap when it comes to the nations' health. It's all about the almighty Dollar.

El Paso Tacos are now on my Shit List.

[Frank.S]

There is not trans-fat ban in Canada. That would be really hard to do..

[GqArtguy]

Originally posted by Frank.S:
There is not trans-fat ban in Canada. That would be really hard to do..

Yes, esp since transfat do occur naturally in whole foods as well.

[BamaDave]

Yeah, we had a thread on trans-fats not too long ago that had posts about those naturally occurring in foods.

I wouldn't support a ban, even though theoretically a ban could cover trans-fats as a food additive without affecting naturally occurring ones, because that opens a big can of worms. I do support the mandated labeling, and increased public awareness will hopefully pressure products made with trans-fats more and more out of the marketplace.

Now I'm freaking out over the "movie style" microwave popcorn we have at home. My daughter has been eating this stuff frequently, and then I read the label. Holy cow. My father-in-law, who is on a diet due to cardiac problems, has been eating this stuff too. In fact, I think he bought it. I'm trying not to become a food nazi at my house, but come on...

[Mark S]

Anyone explain to me why trans-fats are so bad?

[JoshDunn]

Anyone explain to me why trans-fats are so bad?

My understanding is that the problem with trans fats is that the body can't digest them. So the more you eat, the more fat your body is accumulating and the fatter you get, the more health problems that occur.

basically that it.

Hope it helps.
JOSH

[GqArtguy]

Originally posted by JoshDunn:

quote:

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Anyone explain to me why trans-fats are so bad?

My understanding is that the problem with trans fats is that the body can't digest them. So the more you eat, the more fat your body is accumulating and the fatter you get, the more health problems that occur.

basically that it.

Hope it helps.
JOSH [/quote]People freak out about them because they think that its link to higher cholesterol, higher LDL's, and a host of other crap related to heart disease. Its why saturated fat was public enemy #1 a while ago, but youll notice that that concern has fallen by the way side. The problem with a lot of trans fat studies is that 1) correlation does not equal causation, and 2) lack of controls. For example, if you throw enough variables into an equation, eventually youll explain most of the "cause" of an event. Problem with that is that is, whats the difference between a correlation coefficient of .1 vs .2? At what point do we freak out?

The second point is related to experiment design. I can test to see if hotdogs cause heart disease, so I get a bunch of people who eat hotdogs and test their odds of heartdisease vs non-hotdog eaters. Suppose I find that hotdog eaters get higher rates of heart disease. Hot dogs be damned! Right?

Well no, it may be the the case that hotdog eaters smoke more than non-hotdog eaters, or that they eat more as whole compared to non-eaters, just to name a few examples. Medical research is notorious for this kind of crap, it boggles my mind what they allow to be published sometimes.

[BamaDave]

I agree that correlation does not equal causation, but it's not difficult for me to believe that a diet unnaturally high in trans-fats, which don't occur naturally in the human diet in large amounts, screws up blood lipid profiles. In the same vein, it's not hard for me to believe that overabundance of saturated fats in the diet does the same thing, since a more "natural" human diet would not include foods like butter, cream, and high fat cheeses, which are enriched for these fats over what occurs in nature.

Most trans-fat-containing foods are junk foods anyway and don't contain much of a nutritional punch aside from the dense amount of calories they provide.

[GqArtguy]

Originally posted by BamaDave:
I agree that correlation does not equal causation, but it's not difficult for me to believe that a diet unnaturally high in trans-fats, which don't occur naturally in the human diet in large amounts, screws up blood lipid profiles. In the same vein, it's not hard for me to believe that overabundance of saturated fats in the diet does the same thing, since a more "natural" human diet would not include foods like butter, cream, and high fat cheeses, which are enriched for these fats over what occurs in nature.

Most trans-fat-containing foods are junk foods anyway and don't contain much of a nutritional punch aside from the dense amount of calories they provide.

The question then becomes, "what is a natural diet?" Are you implying that we should go back and eat what we ate 10,000 years ago? Where we didnt have whole grain and no one knew how to make a non-trans fatty taco? Milk isnt natural to consume, at least beyond infancy and certainly wasnt consumed before humans found and domesticated cows. Was that shift "unnatural"? Society has evolved overtime and so have our bodies and diets. Freaking out about a taco shell is much ado about nothing.

[BamaDave]

No, I'm not in the Paleo Diet camp... I'm just pointing out that I am not so ready to dismiss the idea that a diet high in fats that were not prevalent in the human diet for the vast majority of our species' existence could very well contribute to the rampant heart disease problems in the U.S. and other countries.

[GqArtguy]

Originally posted by BamaDave:
No, I'm not in the Paleo Diet camp... I'm just pointing out that I am not so ready to dismiss the idea that a diet high in fats that were not prevalent in the human diet for the vast majority of our species' existence could very well contribute to the rampant heart disease problems in the U.S. and other countries.

Grains have not been prevalent in the human diet for the vast majority of our existence either. Perhaps your oatmeal is contributing to the rampant heart disease?

[BamaDave]

Originally posted by GqArtguy:
Grains have not been prevalent in the human diet for the vast majority of our existence either. Perhaps your oatmeal is contributing to the rampant heart disease?

When there's a mountain of scientific evidence linking oatmeal to heart disease, I'll stop eating it! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[GqArtguy]

Originally posted by BamaDave:

quote:

---

Originally posted by GqArtguy:
Grains have not been prevalent in the human diet for the vast majority of our existence either. Perhaps your oatmeal is contributing to the rampant heart disease?

When there's a mountain of scientific evidence linking oatmeal to heart disease, I'll stop eating it! [img]tongue.gif[/img] [/quote]Show me the mountain of scientific evidence that consumption of fat (not overconsumption to obese levels) is linked to heart disease.

[BamaDave]

Well, a review of various websites with nutrition guidelines to help avoid heart disease shows widespread advice to avoid trans-fats. I doubt that the concerns about these fats are baseless.

I agree that it's really hard to separate out intake of trans-fats from other risk factors of human diet and behavior. It looks like there are animal models being developed to study metabolism of different fat sources and effects on incorporation into cell membranes, blood lipid profiles, etc. Hopefully those will help sort out our understanding of how these and other fats behave in the body.

Meanwhile, I see nothing wrong with recommendations to avoid intake of trans-fats and mandatory labeling. Most foods containing trans-fats are junk food anyway, not to mention that the trans-fats contained in those foods can easily be replaced with fats of less concern. I would rather know that there is evidence linking these fats to heart disease, so I can decide what I want to eat and influence my own family to eat. I don't really care what other people eat.

[GqArtguy]

Originally posted by BamaDave:
Well, a review of various websites with nutrition guidelines to help avoid heart disease shows widespread advice to avoid trans-fats. I doubt that the concerns about these fats are baseless.

Look up actual studies for yourself and see whats out there. Many of these websites have agendas or they are wording things in such a way to be technically imprecise. And just because an article has a bunch of references doesnt mean that the study was used in proper context. Berardi has been called out on this on some forums.

I agree that it's really hard to separate out intake of trans-fats from other risk factors of human diet and behavior. It looks like there are animal models being developed to study metabolism of different fat sources and effects on incorporation into cell membranes, blood lipid profiles, etc. Hopefully those will help sort out our understanding of how these and other fats behave in the body.

Maybe, but know that animals are not humans and what happens in a rat does not necessarily happen in a human. Plus, animal studies have their own abusive use. People got crazy over aspartame because rat studies showed that it could cause cancer among other things. What they forgot to tell you is that they fed rats an amount equivalent to a human drinking 100 cokes a day or some other absurd amount. Hmmm, whodve thought that overdosing to an unrealistic amount would have negative effects? Like Ive said, if all you ate was natty pb for a month, you would die from aplhatoxin-B poisoning, strangely you dont see anyone freaking out about PB though.

THe most important thing to remember is that correlation does not equal causation. High protein diets are "correlated" with kidney failure (yeah if you consume 20g per lb of bodyweight) but no one is throwing away their whey.

Meanwhile, I see nothing wrong with recommendations to avoid intake of trans-fats and mandatory labeling. Most foods containing trans-fats are junk food anyway, not to mention that the trans-fats contained in those foods can easily be replaced with fats of less concern.

You have to think about price and individual choice. If all of this really bothers, go to a vegan store or something and get your "natural" food and let the rest of the world pay lower prices for a snack. Theres nothing magical or detrimental about junk food by itself, just eat it moderation. To worry about a taco shell is just as anal as the guy worrying about the carbs in his sushi.

I would rather know that there is evidence linking these fats to heart disease, so I can decide what I want to eat and influence my own family to eat. I don't really care what other people eat.

Again, look up the "evidence." They are not as satanic as you think. This is the same BS that people used to freak out abou tevery gram of saturated fat in their diet back when that was the craze. Again, there is evidence that you can die from protein and natural pb, you should stop eating those too or do the rational thing and consume everything (protein, transfat, etc.) in moderation so that you dont become obese.