Natural Trans-Fats May Be Healthy

[Seymore Spectacles]

[ofonorow]

Well, time for Wikipedia, to uncover the definition of a "trans fat." I'll try to find the time. To my mind a "trans" fat was an unsaturated fat, which was "hydrogenized" to create a "saturated" fat. So a trans fat is a saturated fat (saturated with hydrogen atoms) that was previously an unsaturated fat.

But, it really isn't the "trans fats" per se, according to Thomas Smith (healingmatters.com). THere is something he refers to as "cis." Something caused by the nickle that is used as a catalyst to create the trans fats during processing. Its been a while since I've read his web site, but he places most of the blame for the cell membrane disturbance in Type II on a residue from the manufacturing process.

[Cis4me]

In a nutshell, Cis vs. trans. refers to the orientation of the various species (elements, radicals, etc.) in the makeup of a molecule. It is a pretty difficult concept to explain, and I haven't found any articles I would call that good, but the diagrams in the link might help a little. It is a little like comparing your right hand with your left, both have the same number of fingers but are arranged differently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cis-trans_isomerism

[Dolev]

A fat molecule is mostly a chain of carbons with 2 hydrogens on each carbon. When two hydrogens are missing on successive carbons, this creates a double bond and the chain is "unsaturated" (not saturated with hydrogen). If the missing hydrogens are on the same side (cis), a bend occurs in the chain. If the hydrogens are missing from opposite sides it is "trans" and there is no bend. This changes the physical properties of the fat molecule, even though the chemical formula is the same whether it's cis or trans.