Transfat are formed when
vegetable oils, monounsaturated ( olive oil, canola oil etc) or
polyunsaturated like
corn oil or safflower oil etc) are heated or partially
hydrogenated.
Hydrogenation ruins the nutritional value of vegetable oils. Why would anyone want to ruin the nutrition value of vegetable oils? The purpose of hydrogenation is to solidify an oil so that it can be made to resemble real foods such as butter. The
hydrogenation process imparts desirable features such as spreadability,
texture, "mouth feel," and increased shelf life to naturally liquid
vegetable oils. In the hydrogenation process, vegetable oil is reacted
under pressure with hydrogen gas at 250 - 400oF for several hours in
the presence of a catalyst such as nickel or platinum. However, this
industrial process cannot control where the hydrogen atoms are added to
the "unsaturated" double bonds. Randomly adding hydrogen atoms to
polyunsaturated fats converts natural food components into many
compounds, some of which have never seen before by man until partially
hydrogenated fats were manufactured.Some of the several dozens of
altered compounds created in the manufacture of partially-hydrogenated
fats are "trans" fatty acids chemically they are atoms with unpaired electrons in its outer orbit.They are extremely reactive chemically.They attack cell membrane ,RBC'S ,damage DNA, RNA strands trigering mutation in tissues ( tumors ) leading to cancer, They attack blood vessels leading to plaques and causing CAD.They can also cause many other adverse effects in health areas such as diabetes, immunity, reproduction and lactation, and obesity.consumption of trans fatty acids lower the "good" HDL cholesterol in a dose response manner (the higher the trans fat level in the diet, the lower the HDL level in the blood) and raise the atherogenic lipoprotein(a) in humans as well as raising the "bad" LDL cholesterol and total blood cholesterol levels by 20-30 milligram-percent.One major concern is that trans fatty acids adversely affect immune response by lowering efficiency of B cell response and increasing proliferation of T cells.Recent research has indicated that trans fatty acids interfere with reproductive attributes and of concern is the finding that trans fatty acids lower the amount of cream (volume) in milk from lactating females in all species studies including humans, thus lowering the overall quality available to the infant. One of the reasons that partially hydrogenated oils are used is to
increase the product's shelf life, but they decrease your shelf life.