Margarine has that advantage of high temperature resistance, difficult deterioration and longer storage time. Margarine is usually used to make popular foods such as crispy bread, French fries and doughnuts. Therefore, some fats that make pastry crisp, margarine and edible oil used for frying may contain artificial trans fats.
Animal meat or dairy products contain very little trans fat. Trans fats mainly come from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
Trans fatty acids, also known as hydrogenated fatty acids, are normal vegetable oil hydrogenation, and their properties are similar to saturated fatty acids. Experts point out that trans fatty acids are rarely found in our daily natural foods, which are mainly produced by chemical methods and special processes to improve the taste of food and prolong the shelf life of food, and in this process, trans fatty acids are produced.
Trans fatty acids, like saturated fatty acids, will increase the content of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in blood, but also reduce the content of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol that can prevent heart disease and increase the risk of coronary heart disease.
The name of trans fat comes from its chemical structure, and its molecules contain reverse valence bond structures located on opposite sides of carbon atoms. Compared with cis fat, this reverse molecular structure is less likely to kink.
The ingredients listed on general food labels on food packaging, such as hydrogenated vegetable oil, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, hydrogenated fat, hydrogenated vegetable oil, solid vegetable oil, ghee, artificial ghee, white cream or shortening, contain trans fats.
The molecular formula of unsaturated fatty acids is divided into two structures because of the different orientation of hydrogen atoms: one is cis-bond and the other is trans-bond. Natural unsaturated fatty acids are almost all cis-linked, so most of the fats that animals can metabolize are cis-linked. Trans fatty acids were born after artificial hydrogenation, which hardly exists in nature, and it is difficult for people to deal with such unsaturated fats. Once they enter the human body, most of them stay in the human body, thus increasing the chance of suffering from cardiovascular diseases.