Trans fats

Ever wonder about the history of trans fats in foods?

Nobel laureate Paul Sabatier worked in the 1890s to develop the chemistry of hydrogenation which enabled the margarine, oil hydrogenation, and synthetic methanol industries. While Sabatier only considered hydrogenation of vapours, the German chemist Wilhelm Normann showed in 1901 that liquid oils could be hydrogenated and patented the process in 1902. In 1909, Procter & Gamble acquired the US rights to the Normann patent; in 1911, they began marketing the first hydrogenated shortening, Crisco (composed largely of partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil). Further success came from the marketing technique of giving away free cookbooks in which every recipe called for Crisco. Hydrogenation strongly stimulated whaling, as it made it possible to stabilize whale oil for human consumption.

Production of hydrogenated fats increased steadily until the 1960s as processed vegetable fats replaced animal fats in the US and other western countries. At first, the argument was a financial one due to lower costs; however, advocates also said that the unsaturated trans fats of margarine were healthier than the saturated fats of butter. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) campaigned against the use of saturated fats for fast food cooking starting in 1984. When fast food companies replaced the saturated fat with partially hydrogenated unsaturated fats, CSPI's campaign against them ended. While CSPI defended trans fats in their 1987 Nutrition Action newsletter, by 1992 CSPI began to speak against trans fats and is currently strongly against their use.

There were suggestions in the scientific literature as early as 1988 that trans fats could be a cause of the large increase in coronary artery disease. In 1994, it was estimated that trans fats caused 30,000 deaths annually in the US from heart disease.

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Original Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat
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