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CNN Saturday Morning News
"Weekend House Call": Trans Fat
Aired July 12, 2003 - 08:29 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, welcome to "Weekend House Call." I've got two words for you this morning to spoil your breakfast trans fat. What is it? It gives those packaged cookies and donuts that you're about to have for breakfast a longer shelf life. But it can take years off your life and make you have a little chunky kind of look.
Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to tell us what it all is and how to try to get rid of it or extract it from our diets.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I'll tell you this is...
WHITFIELD: Possible? Jeez.
GUPTA: I think it is possible and I think it's a really important topic, no question. It's artery clogging trans fat. It's the worst kind of fat because it's hydrogenated. And we're going to explain what the means. You can find hydrogenated fat in many of your favorite foods, like crackers, cookies, cakes and margarine.
Right now we have no way of knowing how much trans fat we're eating because it's not listed on the labels. But that's about to change.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): The FDA just announced new regulations ordering food makers to reveal how much trans fat is in their products. Current labels look like this. The new ones are expected to add the trans fat content line along with a other fats.
In making this announcement, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson says consumers will be more informed. But there may be another benefit.
TOMMY THOMPSON, HHS SECRETARY: We're expecting that companies are going to say, you know, we want to make sure we get the best product out there possible and will start competing with each other and they will therefore start reducing the trans fats in their particular products, which, of course, will also help the healthiness of the food that people consume.
GUPTA: And why should we be so concerned about this fat hiding in everything from crackers and chips to fish sticks and cookies?
THOMPSON: It contributes to the wrong cholesterol, the LDL, and it also contributes, of course, to heart disease. And therefore we think if the consumers know what is best for them, they will purchase the proper foods in the proper amounts and do a much better job of improving their health.
GUPTA: But it might be a while before we see the actual trans fat listed on the label. Manufacturers will have until the year 2006 to comply. In the meantime, consumers should read ingredient lists carefully, look for the words partially hydrogenated oil. And if the food is also high in total fat, this combination means high trans fat.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Hmm. So let's talk about the different kinds of fat out there. It is a little confusing. There are good fats and there are bad fats. Let me give you a little bit of a rundown.
Saturated fat is a bad fat. It can increase your cholesterol levels and your risk of heart disease. It's found in animal products such as red meat, poultry, butter and whole milk. Now, trans fat, what we've been talking about already, can be even worse for us than saturated fats. Trans fats increase our bad cholesterol n they also decrease our good cholesterol. So that's sort of double trouble there.
It comes from actually adding hydrogen to vegetable oil, making that fat more solid and less likely to spoil. It's a common ingredient in commercially baked foods, margarine and vegetable shortening.
Now, unsaturated fats are the good fats. Polyunsaturated fats help lower cholesterol and can reduce the amount of cholesterol deposits in your arteries. Foods high in polyunsaturated fats included safflower, corn, sunflower, soy and cottonseed oils.
There's also something else, omega 3 fatty acids. We've talked about that before. They're a kind of unsaturated fat, as well. They can be found in fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring. Omega 3 fatty acids may actually decrease your risk of heart disease, protect against irregular heartbeats and lower your blood pressure. They can even protect you maybe against some cancers.
The last good fat is monounsaturated fat. I know this gets really confusing. This can lower your cholesterol, as well. You'll find it in olive, peanut and canola oils. Avocados and most nuts have high amounts of monounsaturated fats, as well.
All right, with all that information, we want to help you figure out the facts on fat and on reading labels, both very important.
Call us with your questions. Our number, 1-800-807-2620. Or e- mail us at housecall@cnn.com.
And to help answer all of your questions, and already several of them are coming in, we're joined by Samantha Heller. She's a clinical nutritionist at NYU Medical Center.
Thank you so much for joining us.
SAMANTHA HELLER, CLINICAL NUTRITIONIST: My pleasure.
Good morning.
GUPTA: Hey, Samantha, there's lots of questions already coming in on our e-mails and our phone lines.
But let me ask you one right off the top. How much fat are you supposed to have in your diet?
HELLER: Well, the new dietary guidelines that came out last fall suggest between 20 and 35 percent of your daily intake of calories should be from fat. But for most people that doesn't really mean much. I mean can you figure out 20 percent of your calories? Most of us don't even know that.
So what we do is we want to keep our fat intake generally relatively low and have it come from the healthy fats.
GUPTA: So there's not a specific number necessarily?
HELLER: Well, 20 to 35 percent, so if you're eating 2,000 calories a day, you'd have about 22 grams of fat in that day.
GUPTA: OK. Listen, lots of e-mails coming in on this and I want to get straight to a couple of them, if we can.
Daryk from Miami writes, "The total fat content on food labels never seems to add up." Good point, Daryk. "It isn't always clear that the unlisted fat is the trans fat. So, if there are 10 grams of fat total, five grams of saturated fat are listed and there is no sign of the word hydrogenated in the ingredients list, should I assume the unlisted fat content actually comes from the good fat category or could there still be trans fat even though there are no listed hydrogenated ingredients?"
A complicated question, but a good one, Samantha.
HELLER: It is a complicated question, and it is an excellent question, actually.
I think if there's no hydrogenated oils or partially hydrogenated oils listed in the ingredients at this point, since trans fats are not on the label, you can assume that they are not in the product. However, there are some naturally occurring trans fats, but we don't really need to worry about those. We're worried about the ones that we artificially create in our processed foods.
GUPTA: OK. Let's try and get one more e-mail question in before the break.
Roz from Indianapolis asks, "If research indicates that trans fat acids, partially hydrogenated oils not only raise the levels of bad cholesterol in the body, but also lower the good kind, how can any of this stuff actually be acceptable? We know the leading cause of death is attributable to heart disease and obesity. It seems like trans fats may be playing a direct role in these diseases. Can any level be safe?"
HELLER: Well, that's an excellent question also. And last summer, the National Academy of Science came out and said no trans is good trans. So what we're saying is we should have as little as possible, because it isn't healthy. The problem is it's in so many of our foods, it's in cookies and crackers and so many of the things we buy in the grocery store, that it's hard to eliminate completely.
So what we suggest and recommend is you have as little as possible and hopefully with CNN and your help and our help here, people will learn how to do that.
GUPTA: Good advice.
WHITFIELD: Well, Sanjay and Samantha, we've got a caller on the line, as we are encouraging people to ring in.
GUPTA: OK.
WHITFIELD: Arlene from Rhode Island, what's your question or comment?
ARLENE: OK, my question is are you better off frying in olive oil, margarine, butter or vegetable oils?
HELLER: Oh, that's a good question.
ARLENE: Does frying change the dynamics of these items?
HELLER: Well, you're better off not using butter or vegetable shortening ever. So you want to use the unsaturated oils like olive oil or canola oil. The trick is not to heat it up too hot and not to fry for too long. That's probably the best advice I can give with that.
GUPTA: Really good advice.
Another phone caller coming in, Jacqueline from Canada.
Go ahead, Jacqueline.
JACQUELINE: Yes, my central question was what does it do to your body?
HELLER: What does what do to your body?
WHITFIELD: All right, sorry.
We've just got to interrupt that question. We'll get back to it in a minute.
But President Bush is in Nigeria, his last stop of his five African nation tour. Let's listen in.
(INTERRUPTED BY PRESIDENT BUSH IN AFRICA)
COMMERCIAL
GUPTA: All right, welcome back to CNN Weekend House Call.
Before the president's speech, we were taking a caller, Jacqueline from Canada, who was asking our guest, Samantha Heller from NYU what is it exactly that these trans fats do to the body? What effect is it? Why are they so bad?
HELLER: Excellent question. Trans fats are sort of imposter fats. They started out as a natural healthy oil. We altered them chemically. And in our bodies they take the place of what the healthier fats in our bodies do and they don't quite cut the mustard, so to speak.
So what happens is they raise the bad cholesterol, they lower the good cholesterol and we also have some studies suggesting that they increase inflammatory processes in the arteries that then increases your risk for arteriosclerosis.
So we have to be careful about how much trans fats we're eating in our diet on a daily basis.
GUPTA: OK, good answers. Good questions.
Another one coming in. This is one that I was actually interested in, as well. John from Knoxville writing, "I am on the Atkins diet. Do I still need to be concerned about the type of fat I consume?"
Big, big issue, Samantha. A lot of people on the Atkins diet, obviously, actually raising, probably, the amount of fat that they're eating.
HELLER: Oh, Atkins devotees are very faithful to that diet. But, in fact, it's quite unhealthy. It's very high in saturated fat and saturated fat actually raises the cholesterol in your arteries. So you do need to be very concerned about the kind of fat you're eating. Even if you lose weight, the chemical processes in your body by which these fats are metabolized are still the same. Saturated fat raises the cholesterol in your bloodstream, which increases your risk for heart disease. That's the bottom line.
So the Atkins diet or the other high protein diets that have high saturated fat and cholesterol are really unhealthy.
GUPTA: OK, Samantha Heller, thank you so much for joining us.
HELLER: My pleasure.
GUPTA: We obviously ran out of a little bit of time today because of the president's speech.
Important topics, important information.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all for joining us at home, as well.
Tomorrow we're going to be talking about walking, a very important topic, a very important way to try and stay fit. We're actually going to be outside in the park. We hope you'll join us. Tomorrow, that's CNN Weekend House Call.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 12, 2003 - 08:29 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, welcome to "Weekend House Call." I've got two words for you this morning to spoil your breakfast trans fat. What is it? It gives those packaged cookies and donuts that you're about to have for breakfast a longer shelf life. But it can take years off your life and make you have a little chunky kind of look.
Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to tell us what it all is and how to try to get rid of it or extract it from our diets.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I'll tell you this is...
WHITFIELD: Possible? Jeez.
GUPTA: I think it is possible and I think it's a really important topic, no question. It's artery clogging trans fat. It's the worst kind of fat because it's hydrogenated. And we're going to explain what the means. You can find hydrogenated fat in many of your favorite foods, like crackers, cookies, cakes and margarine.
Right now we have no way of knowing how much trans fat we're eating because it's not listed on the labels. But that's about to change.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): The FDA just announced new regulations ordering food makers to reveal how much trans fat is in their products. Current labels look like this. The new ones are expected to add the trans fat content line along with a other fats.
In making this announcement, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson says consumers will be more informed. But there may be another benefit.
TOMMY THOMPSON, HHS SECRETARY: We're expecting that companies are going to say, you know, we want to make sure we get the best product out there possible and will start competing with each other and they will therefore start reducing the trans fats in their particular products, which, of course, will also help the healthiness of the food that people consume.
GUPTA: And why should we be so concerned about this fat hiding in everything from crackers and chips to fish sticks and cookies?
THOMPSON: It contributes to the wrong cholesterol, the LDL, and it also contributes, of course, to heart disease. And therefore we think if the consumers know what is best for them, they will purchase the proper foods in the proper amounts and do a much better job of improving their health.
GUPTA: But it might be a while before we see the actual trans fat listed on the label. Manufacturers will have until the year 2006 to comply. In the meantime, consumers should read ingredient lists carefully, look for the words partially hydrogenated oil. And if the food is also high in total fat, this combination means high trans fat.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Hmm. So let's talk about the different kinds of fat out there. It is a little confusing. There are good fats and there are bad fats. Let me give you a little bit of a rundown.
Saturated fat is a bad fat. It can increase your cholesterol levels and your risk of heart disease. It's found in animal products such as red meat, poultry, butter and whole milk. Now, trans fat, what we've been talking about already, can be even worse for us than saturated fats. Trans fats increase our bad cholesterol n they also decrease our good cholesterol. So that's sort of double trouble there.
It comes from actually adding hydrogen to vegetable oil, making that fat more solid and less likely to spoil. It's a common ingredient in commercially baked foods, margarine and vegetable shortening.
Now, unsaturated fats are the good fats. Polyunsaturated fats help lower cholesterol and can reduce the amount of cholesterol deposits in your arteries. Foods high in polyunsaturated fats included safflower, corn, sunflower, soy and cottonseed oils.
There's also something else, omega 3 fatty acids. We've talked about that before. They're a kind of unsaturated fat, as well. They can be found in fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring. Omega 3 fatty acids may actually decrease your risk of heart disease, protect against irregular heartbeats and lower your blood pressure. They can even protect you maybe against some cancers.
The last good fat is monounsaturated fat. I know this gets really confusing. This can lower your cholesterol, as well. You'll find it in olive, peanut and canola oils. Avocados and most nuts have high amounts of monounsaturated fats, as well.
All right, with all that information, we want to help you figure out the facts on fat and on reading labels, both very important.
Call us with your questions. Our number, 1-800-807-2620. Or e- mail us at housecall@cnn.com.
And to help answer all of your questions, and already several of them are coming in, we're joined by Samantha Heller. She's a clinical nutritionist at NYU Medical Center.
Thank you so much for joining us.
SAMANTHA HELLER, CLINICAL NUTRITIONIST: My pleasure.
Good morning.
GUPTA: Hey, Samantha, there's lots of questions already coming in on our e-mails and our phone lines.
But let me ask you one right off the top. How much fat are you supposed to have in your diet?
HELLER: Well, the new dietary guidelines that came out last fall suggest between 20 and 35 percent of your daily intake of calories should be from fat. But for most people that doesn't really mean much. I mean can you figure out 20 percent of your calories? Most of us don't even know that.
So what we do is we want to keep our fat intake generally relatively low and have it come from the healthy fats.
GUPTA: So there's not a specific number necessarily?
HELLER: Well, 20 to 35 percent, so if you're eating 2,000 calories a day, you'd have about 22 grams of fat in that day.
GUPTA: OK. Listen, lots of e-mails coming in on this and I want to get straight to a couple of them, if we can.
Daryk from Miami writes, "The total fat content on food labels never seems to add up." Good point, Daryk. "It isn't always clear that the unlisted fat is the trans fat. So, if there are 10 grams of fat total, five grams of saturated fat are listed and there is no sign of the word hydrogenated in the ingredients list, should I assume the unlisted fat content actually comes from the good fat category or could there still be trans fat even though there are no listed hydrogenated ingredients?"
A complicated question, but a good one, Samantha.
HELLER: It is a complicated question, and it is an excellent question, actually.
I think if there's no hydrogenated oils or partially hydrogenated oils listed in the ingredients at this point, since trans fats are not on the label, you can assume that they are not in the product. However, there are some naturally occurring trans fats, but we don't really need to worry about those. We're worried about the ones that we artificially create in our processed foods.
GUPTA: OK. Let's try and get one more e-mail question in before the break.
Roz from Indianapolis asks, "If research indicates that trans fat acids, partially hydrogenated oils not only raise the levels of bad cholesterol in the body, but also lower the good kind, how can any of this stuff actually be acceptable? We know the leading cause of death is attributable to heart disease and obesity. It seems like trans fats may be playing a direct role in these diseases. Can any level be safe?"
HELLER: Well, that's an excellent question also. And last summer, the National Academy of Science came out and said no trans is good trans. So what we're saying is we should have as little as possible, because it isn't healthy. The problem is it's in so many of our foods, it's in cookies and crackers and so many of the things we buy in the grocery store, that it's hard to eliminate completely.
So what we suggest and recommend is you have as little as possible and hopefully with CNN and your help and our help here, people will learn how to do that.
GUPTA: Good advice.
WHITFIELD: Well, Sanjay and Samantha, we've got a caller on the line, as we are encouraging people to ring in.
GUPTA: OK.
WHITFIELD: Arlene from Rhode Island, what's your question or comment?
ARLENE: OK, my question is are you better off frying in olive oil, margarine, butter or vegetable oils?
HELLER: Oh, that's a good question.
ARLENE: Does frying change the dynamics of these items?
HELLER: Well, you're better off not using butter or vegetable shortening ever. So you want to use the unsaturated oils like olive oil or canola oil. The trick is not to heat it up too hot and not to fry for too long. That's probably the best advice I can give with that.
GUPTA: Really good advice.
Another phone caller coming in, Jacqueline from Canada.
Go ahead, Jacqueline.
JACQUELINE: Yes, my central question was what does it do to your body?
HELLER: What does what do to your body?
WHITFIELD: All right, sorry.
We've just got to interrupt that question. We'll get back to it in a minute.
But President Bush is in Nigeria, his last stop of his five African nation tour. Let's listen in.
(INTERRUPTED BY PRESIDENT BUSH IN AFRICA)
COMMERCIAL
GUPTA: All right, welcome back to CNN Weekend House Call.
Before the president's speech, we were taking a caller, Jacqueline from Canada, who was asking our guest, Samantha Heller from NYU what is it exactly that these trans fats do to the body? What effect is it? Why are they so bad?
HELLER: Excellent question. Trans fats are sort of imposter fats. They started out as a natural healthy oil. We altered them chemically. And in our bodies they take the place of what the healthier fats in our bodies do and they don't quite cut the mustard, so to speak.
So what happens is they raise the bad cholesterol, they lower the good cholesterol and we also have some studies suggesting that they increase inflammatory processes in the arteries that then increases your risk for arteriosclerosis.
So we have to be careful about how much trans fats we're eating in our diet on a daily basis.
GUPTA: OK, good answers. Good questions.
Another one coming in. This is one that I was actually interested in, as well. John from Knoxville writing, "I am on the Atkins diet. Do I still need to be concerned about the type of fat I consume?"
Big, big issue, Samantha. A lot of people on the Atkins diet, obviously, actually raising, probably, the amount of fat that they're eating.
HELLER: Oh, Atkins devotees are very faithful to that diet. But, in fact, it's quite unhealthy. It's very high in saturated fat and saturated fat actually raises the cholesterol in your arteries. So you do need to be very concerned about the kind of fat you're eating. Even if you lose weight, the chemical processes in your body by which these fats are metabolized are still the same. Saturated fat raises the cholesterol in your bloodstream, which increases your risk for heart disease. That's the bottom line.
So the Atkins diet or the other high protein diets that have high saturated fat and cholesterol are really unhealthy.
GUPTA: OK, Samantha Heller, thank you so much for joining us.
HELLER: My pleasure.
GUPTA: We obviously ran out of a little bit of time today because of the president's speech.
Important topics, important information.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all for joining us at home, as well.
Tomorrow we're going to be talking about walking, a very important topic, a very important way to try and stay fit. We're actually going to be outside in the park. We hope you'll join us. Tomorrow, that's CNN Weekend House Call.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
