The Hemp Connection:
trans fats

Most women already know by the time they find my website, that a higher protein/lower carbohydrate diet will help them to manage their weight and their insulin resistance. But for some reason, people think that in order to eat better, it has to somehow be programmed and contain a lot of expensive foods. Absolutely not!

Peanut butter is one of my favorite protein foods. It's cheap. It's easy to use. You can keep a jar in your office, or in your suitcase when you travel. And the fat it contains, if you use old-fashioned style, is one of the healthier fats to include in your diet. (Trans fats are what happen when good fat is processed to keep the fat in regular peanut butter from separating out.)

I like to use a peanut butter sandwich as a way to eat more fruit. I don't use jelly, I put whatever is in season on my PB: peaches, pears, apples, berries, bananas…I've even used raisins in a pinch.

Don't get too caught up in thinking healthy has to be hard. It's probably already in your kitchen and there's more potential uses for this treat than your childrens' lunchboxes!

I'm not surprised at the number of people who choose the"healthy" versions of things they know are normally not so healthy, based solely on an eye-catching blurb on the front of a package. Things like “trans-fat-free” flavored non-dairy creamer, or chocolate chip cookies “made with whole grains.” And are they really trans-fat-free or made with whole grains? Most of us won't even turn the package around to read the ingredients and find out what that means.

If there's a big graphic on the front with the words"0 grams trans fat per serving" most people will see that and think,"Perfect. I know trans fats are a bad thing, not sure what it is but I'm glad my favorite hazelnut flavored creamer doesn't have it!" And off they go. What they didn’t notice is that the second ingredient on the back was “partially hygrogenated oil” which is – you guessed it – trans fat. The serving size is a teaspoon. Can most of you who use flavored creamers honestly say that you take out a measuring teaspoon and put just that much into your coffee? If you’re like most people I know, you either pour some into your coffee until the color is right (definitely more than a teaspoon), or you use multiple single-serve packets wherever you get your coffee. The loophole is that if it’s less than 0.5g per serving, they can claim it’s got 0 trans fat. So the serving is tiny, not true to what most people actually use.

Same goes with other things like Goldfish crackers. Ooooh! It peeves me so! I was at Target doing some shopping and they have monster-sized bags of Goldfish crackers on sale. And not just any Goldfish crackers. The ones that are"made with whole grains". So here you are, trying to make small changes, since that is what you keep hearing is the easiest to do. A small change might be to find a healthier alternative to the little Goldfish you snack on mindlessly after work every evening. And holy crap! Here’s a “whole grain” version – that’s healthy! Right? Wrong.

Yes. the ingredient panel on the back lists"100% whole grain flour" as the first ingredient, but I took one down the aisle to where the regular Goldfish crackers were to compare. There really wasn't much of a difference – marginal at best. The “healthier” version has about 10 calories less per serving (1 serving is 55 Goldfish for both kinds). It also has 1 gram more of fiber per serving, so from 1 gram in the original, up to a whopping 2 grams in the healthier version. Though it has less fat, it has more saturated fat. And the “healthier” version also has more sodium. So really, is it any better, cumulatively? Not really, though I can hear Goldfish fanatics justifying that extra gram of fiber and 10 less calories to death. It’s still a highly-processed junky food, trying to weasel its way back into your home since chances are if you’re like many Americans, you’re trying to eat healthier.

Food labels are a tricky little business, and if you think the label is there to help you, the consumer, you’re in for a rude awakening. That's just what the food companies want you to believe. At the end of the day, everything they put on a label is carefully thought out, with their bottom line at the top of the priority list. International Delights and Pepperidge Farms (and soooo many others) don’t want to lose you as a customer so they figure, if you’re wising (wisening?) up about nutrition, they’ll play to your new level of nutrition knowledge and keep you around with misleading serving size loopholes and a trivial amount of whole grains in some of their junk products.

Here are some terms to keep in mind when you’re at the store:

• “Zero Grams Trans Fat Per Serving” – hydrogenated and partially-hydrogenated oils – of any kind – are trans fats. If these words appear on an ingredient list, feel free to call B.S. on the “zero grams” claim. Also look at your serving size and see if that is truly what you use.

  This goes for “Fat Free” as well. Remember if it’s less than 0.5 gram of fat per serving they can get away with saying it’s fat free. But if you use multiple times what the recommended serving size is, you’re gonna have to accept that it’s not truly fat-free – this is huge for people trying to lose weight, as the calories will add up faster than you think!

• “Made with Whole Grains” – First ask yourself is it really made with 100% whole grains? Then compare to the original and see if they’re BS-ing you with trivial differences that add up to nothing other than money in the bank for the company.
• “All Natural” – this is not a regulated claim, and any company can use this phrase and interpret their own meaning of what is “natural”. If you find ingredients on the nutrition panel that sure as heck don’t sound natural, well then…
• “No added sugar” – look for other sources of sugar that aren’t literally “sugar” like brown rice syrup, evaporated cane juice, fruit juice concentrate, and also keep an eye out for artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols (aspartame, sucralose, sorbitol, maltitol, lactitol… etc.
• “Made with natural sugar” – Hey, that’s great. But you know what? Sugar is sugar, and too much of it, “natural” or otherwise is not going to add up to anything good in the long run. All your body knows when you put the food in your mouth is, “HEY!!!! Sugar!!! Now it’s a party!” Sugar in moderation won’t kill most people, but somehow, telling someone that it’s “natural” sugar or “raw” sugar, suddenly makes it ok to eat more. And that won’t necessarily save lives, either. Be smart about it.
• “Zero Calories / Calorie-Free” – Like with fats, if it has less than 5 calories per serving, the food company can get away with saying it has zero calories per serving. Rule of thumb is to consider all those zero-calorie items to have 4 calories. And as you might have heard, calories can add up rather quickly. Knowing that, if you’re drinking quite a bit of these zero-calorie beverages, or using multiple servings of zero-calorie salad dressing, you may be motivated to change your ways, if you’re actively counting calories (which I would hope would be the only reason you’re eating and drinking those kinds of things!).

  A special note about Splenda – “The Zero Calorie Sweetener” It’s about 2 calories per little yellow packet. And they can add up very quickly if you’re putting Splenda into everything.

Last night I settled in to watch the evening news, in time to see an ad for Country Crock's Omega 3 Plus brand margarine. With my reputation as somewhat of an"omega 3 queen," I figured I'd better pay attention. And by the time the ad was over, I knew I had today's post.

This label is a perfect example of why consumers are confused, and why they can have a hard time achieving the benefits of good nutritional choices.

First, the good news.

The margarine has no trans fats, because it contains no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. For fertility, this is a huge plus--with as little as 2% of your total calories per day coming from trans fats (about 2/3 tsp for the average woman), fertility can drop by as much as 73%.

Secondly, one serving provides 500 mg of omega-3's in the form of ALA.

Now for the confusing and potentially detrimental news.

When the professionals on this blog talk about what we're doing to enhance fertility and reduce inflammation, and we refer to omega-3's, we are primarily referring to EPA and DHA, the omega-3's that, except for omega-3 eggs and foods supplemented with algal DHA, contain either fish or fish oil. (Menhaden oil, which is what is found in Smart Balance Omega 3 Margarine, is a type of fish oil.)

Any other type of omega-3 is likely to be ALA. This type of omega-3 is found in canola oil, and flaxseed oil, among other things. In this margarine, the ALA source is canola oil.

But there is no fish oil or marine algae to provide a similar nutritional feature.

There are some things that flax and canola can do, and there are some that flax and canola simply cannot do.

Many people, nutritionists included, operate on the assumption that since the omega-3 found in canola and flax can be converted into EPA and DHA, that you can get enough of the latter two without having to eat fish. Most respected omega-3 chemists will tell you this is highly unlikely.

On a good day, when your diet is as perfect as it can possibly be (which, even in the case of the person writing this post is never), only about 2-3% of your flax and canola can be converted into the other omega-3's.

Bottom line, it's pretty non-negotiable, you are highly unlikely to get the amount of omega-3's your body needs, especially if you are trying to conceive, if you are assuming you can do it without fish.

Secondly, the primary oil in the margarine appears to be liquid soybean oil. Remember the rule about"S" and"C" oils? Soybean is one of those"S" oils with a tendency to be pro-inflammatory. It was impossible to tell from the label what the ratio of soybean to canola oil was, and I would suspect that it was higher than you're going to want if you're trying to choose fertility-friendly foods.

I immediately became suspicious about this Country Crock product when I went to the website and nowhere, I mean absolutely nowhere, could I find a plainly stated ingredient list. Sure, there's a label to look at, but it's strategically posted in a way that all the nutritional information is there except for the ingredients. Hmmmm…

…so I went to the FAQ section. Couldn't find it there either. I found a lot of long-winded explanations of trans-fat labeling, and that was my second red flag.

Since I had to go to the grocery store anyway, I stopped in and looked at the label. Here, for the benefit of the rest of the people on the Internet, is the list of ingredients from the side of the container of this product:

Vegetable oil blend (liquid soybean oil, canola oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, water, whey, salt, vegetable mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin (potassium sorbate, calcium disodium EDTA), citric acid, artificial flavor, vitamin A (palmitate), and beta carotene.

For more information on healthy fats, go to http://www.zingbars.com/science-of-zing.html, where my Zing Bar friends describe why they did--and didn't--include certain fats in their new product.

Any fat that is going to be solid at room temperature is going to have to have some saturated fat in its formula. Otherwise, it would melt. So even though the total saturated fat content is low, the type of fat being used to provide the solid quality is not one you want to get much of in your diet.

I'm not really a butter or margarine person so giving those up was not an issue for me. But I did start my career in the Chicago area, and I remember how people used to look at me like I was purple-polka-dotted if I even hinted that dairy intake might need to be adjusted. So I know it's an issue for some of you.

Bottom line--if you choose to use the product, do so only once in awhile and sparingly. I'd rather see people use olive oil-based dipping sauces for breads and cook with either canola or olive oil.

If you're interested in learning more, the authors of the study below also wrote a recently released book in plain English entitled, The Fertility Diet. I'd check it out.

Chavarro JE, Rich-Edwards JW, Rosner BA, Willett WC. Diet and lifestyle in the prevention of ovulatory disorder infertility. Obstet Gynecol. 2007 Nov;110(5):1050-8.