Partial hydrogenation came into use in the early 1900s to turn liquid vegetable oils into fats that are solid at room temperature, perfect for making cookies, crackers, and pie crusts—the very foods that were starting to be sold in packages at grocery stores rather than handmade at home. 

Hydrogenation starts with cheap oils extracted from their sources by high heat then adds nickel as a catalyst and hydrogen under high pressure. The resulting product is then bleached and deodorized and dyed and flavored to make the food-like product we call margarine. Nothing natural about that process for sure!

As early as the late 1970s, research began to question whether these new man-made fats were less healthy than the natural fats in our food supply. Research by Dr. Fred Kummerow at the University of Illinois found that when trans fats occupy spaces in the cellular membrane normally occupied by saturated fats, normal cell function is affected. Remember that the fatty-acid composition of the structure of the cell membrane is vital to the proper functioning of every cell in your body. If you substitute manufactured fats for fats naturally found in foods, then that is like changing the ingredients in the mixture of concrete used to make a strong foundation for our roads and buildings. That doesn’t sound like a safe idea at all!

By the ‘90s disturbing articles about the effects of trans fats began to appear from prominent public health centers around the country. Biochemist Mary Enig's work on trans fats caught the attention of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. They began to connect trans fats with heart disease, hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. In 2006 Dr. Walter Willet, a leading researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health, testified before the New York City Board of Health that trans fats were “the most abundant artificial chemical in our food supply.” Trans fats are now known to compete with the essential fatty acids that play a critical role in our cell structure and functioning. They inflame and damage the lining of the blood vessels. Alzheimer’s disease has increased due to the pro-inflammatory effects of trans fats. Over the past century the increase in trans fat consumption has directly correlated with the rise in coronary artery disease and other major illnesses around the world.  

We have been told all our lives to protect our hearts by eating margarine and using manufactured vegetable oils and shortenings for cooking and baking. To the contrary, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, another Harvard School of Public Health researcher testifying in New York, detailed the effects of these “fake fats” on our heart by noting that there is a 23% increase in risk of coronary heart disease for each 2% of calories consumed from trans fats. Oh dear, that's REALLY not good!!

Even though research from around the world, beginning in the 1970s and ‘80s, showed the harmful effects of trans fats, it was not until 2019 that trans fats were “mostly” removed from the American diet. Anyone who looks at the massive amount of research on trans fats, carried out over many decades now, will realize that introducing artificial trans fats into our diets to replace natural fats has been incredibly bad for our health.

The elimination of trans fats from the American diet caused a tremendous uproar in the manufactured oil industry, which supplies this product to food manufacturers. Processed-food companies can’t just take out the trans fats, but have to add other ingredients to maintain the same texture, taste, and shelf life of the processed food. The elimination of trans fats from the food supply was called “a nightmare” by processed-food companies because complex solutions and much trial and error were required to make new cookies taste like the old ones that we loved.

But is the replacement for trans fats in manufactured foods any safer? That question has not yet been fully answered, but research by chemists seems to point to these foods still being less safe than we might hope. Remember that trans fats were useful as a (cheap) replacement for butter or lard, both demonized saturated fats. Trans fats gave the cookie its stable structure and long shelf life. In order to create fats that achieve the same effect, manufacturers are now using a process called “interesterification”.

Remember that chart of a triglyceride that shows the fatty acids hanging out together in groups of three connected to one another by a glycerol molecule? The process of interesterification is an inexact science. According to medical researcher Nina Teicholz, industry experts describe interesterification as like hitting the glycerol molecule with a sledgehammer. That action randomly redistributes the fatty acids on the glycerol, which then produces a lot of new triglycerides that we know NOTHING about. When industry experts are asked about the health effects of these new oils on our bodies, the answer is, “We just don’t know.” And we are now feeding these new oils in processed foods to our children?

The new manufactured fats that replaced trans fats are now everywhere in our diet, making up 8% of the calories that we consume on a daily basis. One major concern is that these new oils contain high levels of omega-6 fatty acids. Historically the ratio of omega-3 fats to omega 6-fats in our diets has been 1:1. Now that ratio is estimated to be 1:15 or even 1:20 in some parts of the country. This huge new imbalance is considered unhealthy for our cellular structures.

Omega-6 fats directly compete with omega-3 fatty acids to become structural components of the cell membranes throughout our body, but especially in the brain. (There’s that fat-based cell membrane structure again!) Whereas omega-3 fats in the body have an anti-inflammatory effect, high levels of omega-6 fatty acids are just the opposite—inflammatory. According to Dr. Andrew Stoll, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard and author of The Omega-3 Connection, the radical shift in the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats in our diet is contributing to the national increase in depression, suicide, and other mental health disorders. With the exception of studies on the effects of omega-6 fats on cardiovascular markers, no research has been done on the effects of the new manufactured fats on our health. Based on its inflammation-promoting effect in our bodies and brains, consuming so much omega-6 in our foods sounds like a bad plan. The big message here is EAT MORE OMEGA-3 FATS in your diet and reduce the intake of  inflammatory omega-6 fats.

As if the unnatural ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 in the new manufactured oils wasn’t enough, they are being used to fry foods at very high temperatures, which further destabilizes them and creates toxic by-products that are very chemically reactive. These toxic by-products formed during the production and heating of the new manufactured fats are of concern to the food manufacturing industry and should be to you as well!

More about the history of manufactured oils can be found in the book The Big Fat Surprise by investigative journalist Nina Teicholz. It is a thorough review of the history of fats and how we ended up eating so many man-made ones.

This is Dr. DeLaney signing off and reminding you to eat real food!