Not all trans fats are bad, said Spencer Proctor, a cardiovascular scientist in agricultural, food and nutritional science at the University of Alberta.
“One of the biggest messages I try and get across is that we’ve done ourselves a disservice by labelling all trans fats as being bad,” said Proctor.
The war on trans fats began about a decade ago and was highlighted by New York’s decision in 2008 to ban trans fats in restaurants.
But such public policy decisions and media reports on the health threats of trans fats have not made a distinction between natural and processed trans fat, Proctor said.
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“When you have certain oils or fats that you reheat continuously at high heat… that you start to generate certain compounds and lipids that you normally wouldn’t see in the food chain. These are what we call industrial generated trans fats.”
Consumption of those fats should be reduced, he said.
However there are natural trans fats, such as vaccenic acid, which might be good for humans.
Dairy and beef products contain high levels of vaccenic acid, a fatty acid known to reduce the risk of heart disease.
He hopes that all natural sources of trans fat will be excluded from food labels in future.
“The message we have at the moment (about beef and dairy), as far as the trans fat and the labelling issues, really hasn’t done good justice for those products,” said Proctor.
