Today’s interesting fact has to do with transfats.

Although I’ve done transfats in the past, there is plenty more to be said about them.

Transfats are placed in foods by food manufactures to extend shelf life.  If a cake or loaf of bread will last two weeks on the shelf instead of two days, the shop wins, the manufacturer wins and only the purchaser and consumer loses.

Transfats  are mostly man-made fats, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, that are made by bubbling hydrogen gas through oil in the presence of a nickel catalyst.  This turns the liquid oil into a solid fat.

Transfats have been linked to most of the health issues long thought to be caused by saturated fats: heart disease, cardiac arrests, strokes, plaque in the blood vessels, high blood pressure and numerous other issues.  One way transfat apparently does this by somehow increasing bad and decreasing the good cholesterols as well as getting deposited on the insides of our blood vessels and hardening our arteries.

One way of limiting the transfats in your diet is to know what the ingredients are called in food speak, the way the manufacturers rename transfats to keep you from knowing they are in your food.

If you find hydrogenated vegetable oil, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, vegetable shortening or margarine in the list of ingredients, this is  most likely referring to the transfats within the product.  Some manufacturers have started using just shortening to refer to tranfat.

Some products in the UK can apparently have up to 40% transfat in them.

Me, I’m reading the ingredients from now on a bit more carefully.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with transfats.

The medical profession have all agreed throughout the world that transfats are bad for us.

The US FDA recommends a limit of 2 grams of transfat a day.

The EU is considering what limit to suggest.

Denmark recently banned transfats in foods in that country, but the EU stated that the ban was illegal and they had to rescind it.

Transfats have often been called empty calories, except that your body does use them, although not in the way you might wish it to.

Transfats increase the bad cholesterol in your blood, and has been linked to the plaque that forms in arteries.

In the US, if a product has more a half a gram of transfat per serving, they have to put the information on the packet.

So many companies have reduced their suggested serving sizes, so that each serving size only has 0.49 grams of transfat in it, and therefore they do not need to declare it is in the product.

It also means they can put 0% transfat on their packet, even though the product has transfats in them.

Because the serving size is reduced, and people tend to still eat what they think is the correct serving, many end up going over the recommended limit very quickly.

In the EU, transfat amounts are not yet required on the packet, and companies include it within the saturated fat figure.

Granola bars, breakfast cereals, cakes and breads often contain transfat.

Until the EU requires transfat amounts on packages and the US requires exact amounts of it in food products, no one will really know how much they are eating.

Did I mention that transfats are bad for us?

Today's interesting fact has to do with cinnamon and type 2 Diabetes.

I was asked the other day by a work collegue, why I always put cinnamon into my Tea and Coffee.

The answer was quite simple, I don't want to add sugar to my drinks, and as our ancestors knew before sugar was widely available, cinnamon makes what ever it is added to taste sweeter. And for me, it sweetens my drinks just the right amount.

Also, I went on to explain, a daily dose of cinnamon, from a quarter teaspoon to a teaspoon, has been shown to help delay (and some studies have suggested may prevent) the onset of type 2 Diabetes.

In addition, it seems to reduce fasting blood glucose, as well as triglycerides and LDL (or bad) cholesterol.

From other studies it has been shown that tt doesn't seem to matter if the spice has been added to food or drink, or taken orally in a capsule or tablet.

So, I was asked, why don't doctors tell us about this?

I had to think about this question for a while before my memory dredged up the information.

Cinnamon comes from the bark of treas and bushes. The amount of active ingredients found in the bark is extremely variable, and depends both on the genetics of the tree, where on the tree the bark was harvested as well as how much sunshine the bark received. Which is one reason doctors may not prescribe it, quality control is important in medications.

Taking cinnamon in large amounts is not a good idea, as large doses of one of cinnamon's active ingreadiants, coumarin, can cause liver damage. Coumarin can also thin the blood, so people with bleeding disorders or on anti-clotting medication, should reduce their intake.

Which active ingredient, or combination of chemicals, is causing the affects noted in the above studies hasn't been competely identified.

It's been suggested in most studies that pregnant women should avoid excessive amounts, and while you can buy a concentrated oil of cinnamon, it is not intended for consumption and using it orally can depress the central nervous system.

So limiting yourself to no more than a teaspoon's worth a day is probably a good idea, at least until they determine what is causing the effect and how to standardise doses.

Myself, I'm going to continue having a bit in my tea and coffee, cause it tastes good.