I was duly alarmed by this morning's NYT op-ed piece by Nina Teicholz about the dangers of trans fats in prepared foods, I mean, good lord, the thing is titled "Nuggets of Death"...but I paused at this line:  "Trans fats are also easily manipulated, able to give a Goldfish cracker its crunch, for instance."

Hmm. Just yesterday Syd and I were learning Spanish from a bilingual boast on the Goldfish box, which says a Goldfish cracker has 0 grams (0 gramos, en Espanol) of trans fats (or acidos transgrasos, as we now call them at our house).

Turns out this has been true for almost two years.

I'm sure nuggets of death are bad things...but nuggets of fact are good things.

Comments

[jsykes]

Ed:

My wife and I watched Dr. Kenneth Cooper give a talk at the Wilson Center on CSPAN this week. What an eye opener.

Trans fats raise bad cholesterol and decrease good. Who knew.

He mentioned that Frito Lay had come to him in the recent past to begin working to reduce trans fats in their products. The company not only took the hit cost wise to convert their products, but saw a huge increase in stock value as a result of increased sales due to offering a healthier snack choice.

Now if we could only do the same with fossil fuels.

[nk]

Not to take anything away from your point, which is excellent, but the "we need to live by a doctor's prescription" attitude is very annoying. They tell us "don't, because you'll get sick" but they never tell us "don't, and we guarantee you will be healthy". I have heard of an experiment where they determined that just drinking too much water could kill you -- of course, it turned out to be 80 gallons a day. Eat whatever you want. Just don't be a pig about it. Eat only as much as you burn up. I have already fired up the grill and there will be fatty meat sizzling on it until October. Peas and corn, but with butter and salt, simmering on the stove. Leafy vegetables, sure, in a fricasse.

[jbb]

Ed,

The notion that Trans-Fats (ie vegetable shortening and margarine) is the main source of heart disease in America was known in limited circles nearly 25 years ago.

It was known to a large number of people 15 years ago, and to probably 10% of the population by 10 years ago. The FDA finally accepted it 5 years ago, and created regulations for food manufacturers to add it to their labels. Most got the idea, and started eliminating it from their foods.

The fast food places are especially deadly. McDonalds has a diet very low in saturated fat, but very high in trans-fats.

The whole heart disease industry was largely driven by the margarine and vegetable shortening industry, which was ultimately caused by doctors recommending it as a substitute for supposedly deadly saturated (ie. animal) fat.

In the 50's, doctors did experiments with trans fats vs. and animal fats and found that trans fats didn't raise total cholesterol like animal fats did. That was because animal fats raised both good and bad cholesterol (raising the total a lot) while trans fats lowered good cholesterol enough to compensate for the rise in bad cholesterol (they're both in the total you know) to appear healthier.

Thus, when I grew up in the 70's we all ate margarine to be healthier and heart surgeons had a great living.

Glad to know the New York Times is on the case just in time.

[Joel Mackey]

Good to know that you are preparing your child for our future national language.

[nk]

P.S. Just couldn't resist:

(Told by somebody else, not me.)

I recently picked a new primary care physician. After two visits
and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing "fairly well" for my age. A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking him, "Do you think I'll live to be 80?" He asked, "Well, do you smoke tobacco or drink beer or wine?" "Oh no," I replied. "I've never done either." Then he asked, "Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?" I said, "No, I heard that all red meat is very unhealthy."
"Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf / sailing /ballooning /motorcycling / rock climbing?" "No, I don't," I said. He said, "Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or sexually fool around?" "No," I said. "I have never done any of those things." He looked at me and said, "Then why do you give a s__t if you live to be 80?"

[max]

Trans fats are poison, but homogenized milk is even worse.

As for Goldfish, Pepperidge Farm may have seen the light, but almost all, if not all, of its cookies still have trans fats in them.

[Jim C.]

mk wrote, "I have heard of an experiment where they determined that just drinking too much water could kill you -- of course, it turned out to be 80 gallons a day."

Actually, it can be much less than that. Among runners there was the occasional death from rehydrating only with plain water during a race, when they also needed salt. Google "hyponatremia" and "water intoxication" for more info.

That dihydrogen monoxide can be a dangerous chemical. :)

[davod]

Nk is the sane one here. Everything in moderation, even trans fats.

[AST]

I thought you were saying the Goldfish company was lying, because, well, the NYTimes couldn't be wrong.

I figure that 15 years from now, they'll tell us that they were wrong about Transfats and that we're not eating enough of them.

[Adolf Fiinkensein]

In the Soviet Socialist Utopia of New Zealand, a recent clinical trial involving a group of obese Maori (indigenes) showed conlusively that a diet consisting largely of greasy pork chops, bacon and fried eggs with lashings of tomato sauce (ketchup to you Yanks) actually reduced their cholesterol levels.

[Matt]

How does the fact that Goldfish crackers no longer contain transfats render the statement that the're "able to give a Goldfish cracker its crunch" false?

The statement "Sugar's able to make Coca-Cola sweet", is true even now that Coca-Cola has high fructose corn syrup, no? (please don't get sidetracked by the fact that in some places coca-cola is still made with sugar, that's irrelevant.)

[Syl]

Well, Matt, it doesn't matter that trans fats CAN give Goldfish crackers their crunch, it matters that the piece implied that trans fats currently DO.

[paul a'barge]

Look, wait two weeks and the media will be reporting that some other scientist has found that trans fats are good for you.

How many of these scientific 180's do we have to put up with until we realize that these bozos are winging it?

[WildMonk]

I work in the health and wellness field so I'm pretty familiar with research like this. First, 'nuggets of death' is a bit over the top. Eating trans fats won't kill you (at least not in moderation and if you are otherwise eating well) but there is absolutely no way that they're going to find that trans fats are "good for you" in two weeks or two centuries.

The real experts aren't 'winging it' at all. The problem is that they are trying to wring the effect of one substance or behavior out of a population that consumes a diverse mix of foods or a range of other behaviors. They can't exactly run controlled experiments in most cases ("Here, you eat nuggets of death..."). Sometimes they get the effect wrong because there is an associated behavior that tracks with the adverse outcome or sometimes they'll sensationalize what are really small effects. But most of the folks in this field that I've known are truly trying to contribute something of value. People - or the media - often drive conclusions that are unwarranted but that says more about them than the field.

For example, the conclusion here seems to be that researchers are saying "oh, its not saturated fats, its trans fats" - but that is not true. Saturated fats remain on the "minimize" list. It is just that our entire understanding of fat consumption has evolved considerably since the 1970s so that we have a better take on other forms of fat (trans, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, etc.). Is that surprising? I should hardly think so.

[triticale]

Do college students still swallow Goldfish? I thought that fad went out in the '30s.

[Ed Cone]

The idea that scientists and nutritionists are just winging it is absurd. Trans fats seem unhealthy.

It's just not cool to use a brand name to illustrate a point when that brand name switched from trans fats 2 years ago.

I'm with the enjoy life and embrace moderation crowd.

[Larry]

If that piece wasn't an op-ed, I would be truly confused given this NYT article on the subject. It claims that saturated fats are the equal of trans fats.

[Robert Speirs]

As long as they're "trying" who cares about the fact that they "can't exactly run controlled experiments" (also known as "doing science")? They're telling us not to eat something that tastes good, so they must be right. The standards of proof in this controversy are abysmal. Enough prevarication equals an outright lie. Ignore the doctors. Live.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

Something is eventually going to kill me. I want it to taste good.

Ellen

[Timothy]

For serious, the reason people are so paranoid about this that or the other thing these days is that we've mostly solved the problems that killed our ancestors. Live long enough, you get cancer. Or heart disease. The avoid-all-that's-bad-for-you-even-a-little crowd are today's self-flaggelating monks.

[subrot0]

I see a conspiracy here:

Drugs companies need one more problem to solve. Trans fats are going to kill unless you take this little orange pill which costs umpteen million dollars to make. Pay us $45/pill or we will get very upset.

And so the publicity machine cranks up: Trans fats bad, any kind of fat bad. There are good fats and bad fats. The bad fat will kill you quicker than the good fat.

Then the drug companies crank up their machines and start producing the drugs that lower the bad fat. Of course the side effects of hepatic, renal failure or death are not really an issue.

And so the machine rolls on: we need more studies about bad fats, good fats, which produces more drugs, which produces more questions which resolves none of the issues.

Which brings us back to Aristotle:

"Moderation, in all things moderation."

[Ed Cone]

Conspiracy theories look silly when Occam's Razor cuts to a simpler solution.

Diet matters. Some things are healthier than others. It's useful to know what's healthier, and what's less healthy. Our understanding of these things continues to improve, but remains imperfect.

And yes, people are there to make a buck with every change in understanding.

But moderation in all things, including moderation, is a philosophy I embrace.

[Vladimir Makovitsa]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/046508995X/sr=8-1/qid=1145289809/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6234680-9874311?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[Greg F]

Oh my, more musings from a innumerate journalist with scary statistics.

A daily intake of five grams of trans fats increases the risk of contracting heart disease 4 percent to 28 percent, various studies have shown.

To translate, that would be a relative risk of 1.04 to 1.28. From the National Cancer Institute.

In epidemiologic research, relative risks of less than 2 are considered small and are usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias, or effects of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident. In an editorial accompanying the study, Lynn Rosenberg, Sc.D., Boston University School of Medicine, points out that a "difference in risk of 50 percent (relative risk of 1.5) is small in epidemiologic terms [human population studies], and severely challenges our ability to distinguish whether it reflects cause and effect or whether it simply reflects bias."

For a basic understanding of risk ratio try this. If you have a lot of time to kill Understanding the fundamentals of epidemiology is quite educational.

[David Gillies]

The death rate is 100%, eventually. I'm scarfing Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts out of a drum the size of my head as I write this, washing it down with vodka (laced with caffeine, taurine, maltodextrin etc). Zero trans fats, says the nutritional block on the peanut can. But so what? The biggest study to date shows that diets, be they low-fat, low carb, high-protein, low cholesterol, whathaveyou, make practically no difference whatever to longevity. Being slightly overweight appears, if anything, to be mildly prophylactic against the big three killers. I shall be cooking Beef Lo Mein later. That's about as healthy (and tasty) as you can get, but it's fried red meat, and I'm sure some killjoy somewhere would get his tits in a flutter about it. Perhaps the ginger marinade has been shown to cause increased death rate in lab rats, if they're fully immersed in it for three hours and then whacked over the head with a steak hammer to tenderise them. Anyway, I'm only 36, and I'm banking on nanotech to fix me.

Further to Greg F's links, to truly understand what a dismal caricature of real science is most epidemiology, take a look at Number Watch, especially the FAQ on relative risk. I warn you, reading the rest of the site can be a depressing business, as one comes to realise to what extent the fanatics, rent-seekers and eco-freaks have vitiated the sciences of epidemiology and ecology.

[John]

The problem with the "zero" trans fat Goldfish, is that they can make that claim so long as there is less than .5 gram of trans-fat per serving. Combined with artificially small serving sizes (I routinely eat 3 servings at a time of "zero" trans fat Oreos, for example), and one can easily end up with a significant amount of trans fat.

At a minimum, labels should list trans fat content rounded to the nearest .1 gram. It is interesting to note that sodium, which occurs in roughly similar amounts and has roughly similar suggested intake limit (while there is no official Daily Value for trans fat, a limit of 1% of calories has been proposed) is listed with a resolution of 10mg.

[Ed Cone]

Good point, John -- I was tipped to that by an emailer who is careful about this diet after his heart attack, so I checked out the Goldfish box. One serving is 55 of the crackers -- so I think in that case at least the 0 gram claim seems legit.