Trans-Fat Free

www.DrWeigh.com

The FDA is allowing nutrition packaging to mislead us. A patient brought in some delicious Fiber One muffins the other day. She also brought the box so she could show me how healthy these muffins were. As we looked at the nutrition label, she said, "I used all the mix but made one quarter the number of muffins because otherwise the muffins wind up way too small." So to be accurate, we would have to multiply everything on the nutrition label by four to get an accurate assessment of what we had eaten. I looked at the front of the box. It said, "Trans-fat free" in big letters. I then looked at the nutrition label. Trans fat: 0 g. But then I looked at the ingredient list and there it was- PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED OIL. Wait a minute... a partially hydrogenated oil is a trans fat. How can they advertise that it is trans fat-free when there is a trans fat in the ingredient list?

Let's look at this more closely:

Serving size: 1 muffin Serving we actually ate: equivalent to 4 muffins
Calories: 190 Calories we ate: 760
Total fat: 3 g Total fat we ate: 12 g
Trans fat: 0 g Trans fat we ate: WE DON'T KNOW!!!

How is it that we don't know how much trans fat we ate? Because a product can be advertised as 'trans fat-free' if it has less than half a gram of trans fat per serving. But we ate four servings! So we may have eaten up to 2 g of trans fat, which is a large amount.

Beware of hidden trans fats! Always look for hydrogenated or partially oils on the ingredient list. If they are on the list, the product contains trans fats so be aware of the serving size.

By the way- I wouldn't eat those muffins again!