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Worst Breakfast Foods By David Zinczenko, with Matt
Goulding It’s hard to overestimate the
importance of eating breakfast. Studies show that people who take time
for a morning meal consume fewer calories over the course of the day...
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Essential Weight Loss Foods By Dr. MaoShing Ni There are many fad diets that promise
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By Camille Noe Pagán If you've been avoiding burgers, ice cream,
and pizza thinking you're doing your waistline a favor, don't. They
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Over the past few years
scientific evidence that indicates trans fatty acids (or now
more commonly referred to as trans fats) are bad for cardiovascular
health has been mounting. The problem has been that trans fats
can be found in such a large number of processed foods so that
it has been difficult for consumers to avoid them even when
they wanted to. Added to this has been the resistance of many
food manufacturers to find acceptable alternatives to trans
fats and to change their formulations. As well, the trans fats
often give the texture and mouth feel to many foods that appeal
to consumers.
For years health authorities have told us
to cut down on the amount of total fat in our diets. People
in developed countries have been consuming too many calories
and this has contributed to the epidemic in obesity that we
are now experiencing. The focus soon switched to the type of
fat in our diet. Saturated fats – found most commonly
in animal / meat products - were targeted and we were advised
to cut down the saturated fat in our diet and to increase our
consumption of polyunsaturated fats. The advice was to look
at vegetable sources which are high in polyunsaturated fats.
A good example is canola oil which is one of the best sources
of polyunsaturated fats.
Trans fatty acids are the latest culprit
linked to health problems. Recently, Health Canada posted the
results of analytical tests they carried out on a wide variety
of foods sampled from restaurants across Canada (in 2006 and
2007) to show which foods were highest in trans fat content.
The names of the restaurants or manufacturers were also identified
so that consumers could make easy comparisons.
The data reported includes the amount of
total fat in the product, as a % of the total food, the % trans
in the total fat, the % saturated fat in the total fat and the
% of tans fat plus saturated fats in the total fat. Data on
the saturated fat content is included because, from a health
perspective, foods high in saturated fats and trans fats should
be avoided.
With the help of this data Canadian consumers
can easily see what foods need to be avoided if they want to
reduce the trans fat content in their diets.
