transfats always produced by heating?

[swedeheart]

I'm on a consumer mission against transfats in foods and was recently given the answer "no this product is not heated during production and hence doesn't contain any transfats". I thought there were other processes as well, apart from heating, that may cause fats to become transfats? What I'm really asking is, of course, may I trust above reply?

[heathfield]

''Trans fats are produced by heating liquid edible oils in the presence of hydrogen, metal catalysts and pressure, which adds hydrogen to the oil and produces a hardened solid fat. A variety of oils are used to produce trans fats, including canola*, soybean or cottonseed oils. Trans fats often appear on food labels as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.'' (From 'The Courier' student newspaper)

Transfats are also found in the fats of ruminants, such as cows, sheep, etc, and small amounts are present in dairy products. But these transfats are not considered to be as harmful as those artificially produced, and may even be beneficial.

*(Canola is rapeseed).

[swedeheart]

Thanks heathfield, it's just I had a feeling there might be other methods as well that didn't necessarily include heating, but I could be wrong.

swedeheart wanders off, ruminating

[NiceCupOfTea]

I read an interesting snippet in the Metro newspaper yesterday regarding fats. Apparently, when we eat fats they are changed to some chemical which attaches to some hormone or other (or something) which the brain then uses as a memory signal, the gist of the article being we remember puddings we've eaten in the past but not salads. Apparently, because fat is rare in nature it is a mechanism to enable us to remember the source of the fatty food so we can return to it. In my case, that would be the local Pizza parlour, but 10,000 years ago would possibly have been the nearest nut tree.

The whole point of the above being that fats aren't bad for you, but processed foods in the main are bad for you so cook from scratch and then you'll have to blame something else if you're unhealthy.

[swedeheart]

NiceCupOfTea did you read that snippet on the tube (the paper being Metro) and if so could you keep from laughing at us remembering puddings but not salads, ha ha ha it's so funny, it's like a reversed Stendhal syndrome, for pudding, I love it! But it's very interesting and very plausible, I thank you for sharing it here. Just a thought, where does that leave Proust's Madeleine cake, there isn't a lot of fat in those is there... oh yes the eggs count as fat I suppose. Again, NCOT, thanks, that was really interesting.