rawmilkandrubberboots

Now before you call me crazy and hit the Back button or slap your laptop shut in disgust the title is quite valid, to a certain point.

The birth date of trans fats can be linked back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution when new methods were used to make cooking oils.  Without boring you with the chemistry behind this I’ll simply say it has to do with the placement of two hydrogen atoms around two carbon atoms.  The natural placement is side by side (aka. cis-bonds), but the high temperature created in the oil making process knocks one of these hydrogen atoms “across the street”, leaving its next door neighbour.

So why are trans fats bad?  Simply put, it’s because our bodies do not know how to attack this movement, which causes a whole host of diseases.  This is what science and marketing gurus have been preaching to us for the last few years.

You may be thinking I’ve just trumped myself by proving in actual fact that trans fats ARE bad for us!  Keep your cool here comes my beef about trans fats.  Consider that last sentence foreshadowing.

Before the time of the Industrial Revolution, Mother Nature was millions of years ahead of the game.  Ruminants.  These special creatures include: deer, elk, moose, cattle, sheep, goats, etc.  and what sets these animals apart from other mammals is the fact they are a huge walking fermenter turning grass into food for humans.

The fermenter (rumen) of the animal acts like the oil press, it takes fatty acids (in particular linoleic and linolenic acid) and adds hydrogen until it is completely saturated.  This process known as biohydrogenation, with one of the by-products being a trans-fat called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).  This natural trans-fat is no more like its artificial counterpart than chaulk is like cheese.  CLA has been linked to lowering cholesterol, decreasing the incidence of heart disease and some types of cancer, and acts as a powerful antioxidant.  Sounds like something worth eating!

Now where would one find CLA in everyday dining?  Pick anything that comes from cattle: yogurt, cheese, milk, meat, and butter NOT margarine (a blog for another day).

The proof is out there.  While marketing has twisted your opinion of trans fats (with good reason for the artificial trans fats), they have neglected to point out some trans fats may have such an impact on your life like preventing chronic, often fatal, diseases.

My beef about on the misconceptions about beef has been unveiled before your eyes.  Agricultural “myth buster” 1—The Powers to Be 0.