Trans fat—exposed!

Muscle & Fitness/Hers, March, 2004

One day while researching her book, The Trans Fat Solution (Ten Speed Press, 2003; $12.95), Kim Severson spent a day in the munchies aisle of her local supermarket looking at close to 400 varieties of crackers.

"Out of those 400, I found only about three kinds of crackers that didn't contain trans fat," says Severson, a food reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. As you probably know by now, trans fat--partially hydrogenated vegetable oil--is on the health hit list: Researchers now believe that it may be even worse for our arteries than saturated fats like butter. The FDA has mandated that food manufacturers reveal their products' trans fat content as of 2006 (some manufacturers, in fact, are already doing it), but until that time, you might want to use Severson's method for scouting out amounts of the artery clogger. First, check the ingredient list for partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. If it's there, look at the fat stats listed on the Nutrition Facts panel. Next, add up the grams of specific fats--those listed may be monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat and saturated fat or just saturated fat--then subtract that number from the grams of total fat. The remainder will be the amount of trans fat in the product. The worst offenders, says Severson, tend to be frozen meals, microwave popcorns, ramen soups, cake mixes and nondairy creamers. And crackers, of course--check those and check them twice.