When food is fried, it absorbs some of the fat from the oil, potentially increasing calories. In addition, commercially fried and processed foods can often contain trans fats, created by an industrialized process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid (think of semisoft margarine and shortening).
The food industry loves trans fats because they are cheap to produce, last a long time and give foods a great taste and texture.
Besides fried foods, you’ll find trans fats in coffee creamer, cakes, pie crusts, frozen pizza, cookies, crackers, biscuits and dozens of other processed foods.
The US Food and Drug Association banned trans fats in 2015, but has extended time frames for the industry — the latest gave companies until June 18, 2019, to stop manufacturing foods and until January 1, 2021, for these products to work their way through the marketplace.
There is still a loophole, however. The FDA allows companies to label a food as “0 grams” of trans fats if one serving of the food contains less than 0.5 grams.
If people eat multiple servings of such foods, the small doses can quickly add up, experts say, contributing to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other conditions, such as dementia.
According to the American Heart Association, trans fats raise your bad cholesterol levels and lower your good cholesterol levels. The AHA recommends replacing trans fats from fried and processed foods with monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats, such as olive and canola oil.
