A recent study by the centre for science and Environment found that most junk foods including burgers pizzas French fries samosas, jalebs namkeen  contain high amount of trans fats salt and sugar. One of the main sources of trans fats in India is vanaspatighee that is used to cook these foods. No wonder heart diseases and diabetes are on the rise in Indians.

What are trans fats: Trans fats are made by a chemical process called partial hydrogenation liquid vegetable oil otherwise includes healthy is packed with hydrogen atoms which are converted in to a solid fat.Sources: initially trans fats seemed like a good thing the flavor texture and shelf life of many processed foods-from all commercial biscuits cakes cookies to frozen pizza most trans fats come from processing liquid vegetable oil to become solid fat these include vanaspati ghee margarine some sandwich spreads also have trans fats in them trans are different from naturally occurring saturated fats.

The naturally accruing saturated fats are found in desi ghee dairy products beef lamb chicken SFs consist of cis-isomers where hydrogen atoms are attached on one side of the carbon chain during partial hydrogenation the hydrogen atoms get attached on opposite sides of the carbon chain to from trans-siomers.Harmful effects: trans fats are harmful effects on blood lipids promote and cause blood vessel abnormalities these are all risk factors for heart disease like saturated fats trans fats raise the level LDL and increase the risk heart disease but unlike saturated fats trans fats also lower the level of HDL or the good cholesterol which help unclogarteries. Thus the trans fats are most damaging for human body especially the heart says the American Heart Association in short the so-called zero-cholesterol margarine is definitely more harmful to the heart than butter.

Safe consumption limit: the AHA advises limiting saturated to fat consumption less than 7% of total daily calories and trans fats consumption to less than 1% if your daily calories consumption is 2000Kcal, the trans fats consumption should not exceed 2 gm the AHA  also recommends avoiding trans fats as far possible there is no threshold below which they are safe the more trans fats you consume the worse it is for your heart say the guidelines.

Zero% reading on labels: zero trans fats on a food label mean that the particular product contains 0.5mg trans fat per serving so a single serving of cookies could have a much as a ½ gm of trans fats and can be labeled as zero trans fats but he aware that often a single serving is often less than what an average person would eat one should get in to the habit of reading labels on food products also keep in mind that saturated fat can also be unhealthy when consumed in excess if any food label lists trans fats as 0 gm look at the ingredients list for the words partially hydrogenated any oil that is partially hydrogenated is a trans fat.Finally watch out against cookies cakes muffins cake mixes burger fries spreads and also gulab jamuns samosas and jalebis these can be eaten once in a while but not on a regular basis instead have fruits nuts and roasted whole grains as snacks.