Just recently, New York City passed a law to stop restaurants from using trans fats in food preparation. Trans fats are oils that have been hydrogenated from a liquid to a solid or semi-solid state, providing processed foods with a longer shelf life. Trans fats can be found in many processed foods such as baked goods and crackers, and also fried foods. They are more harmful for your body than saturated fats (a type of fat found in animal products), because they not only raise the body levels of "bad cholesterol" (LDL) but also lower the levels of "good cholesterol" (HDL).

The banning of trans fat is a good step. But health professionals caution that reducing trans fat in the diet isn't very helpful if it is replaced with saturated fat. For example, if restaurants replaced hydrogenated soybean oil (trans fat) with palm oil (50 percent saturated fat) for cooking fried foods, the health benefit would be marginal.

Consumers need to be aware of what kind of fats are present in foods—and how many calories are present as well, in order to lower weight and improve health.

Labels: fats, healthy eating, nutrition