When the demand for butter exceeded the ability of farmers to supply this desirable fat … the search for a substitute started us on a road to trans fats, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Not until 20 years ago did we finally discover the dangers of trans fats.
How Did Trans Fats Enter our Food Supply?
In the 1860s butter was in great demand and there just wasn’t enough to satisfy everybody. Emperor Louis Napoleon III offered a prize for a substitute … and so, the first margarine was invented by a French chemist. It was created from clarified beef fat.
It wasn’t until 40 years later that the process of hydrogenation was developed … and the door to deadly trans fats was opened. Butter rationing during two worlds wars and the lower cost of margarine … had more and more people switching to this butter substitute — made from cheap vegetable fats.
When vegetable oils are hydrogenated … their molecules are chemically re-arranged. This produces a fat — trans fat — that becomes semi-hard at room temperature. Basically, trans fats mimic the saturated fats that our taste buds love. We are...