When you're shopping for groceries or watching food ads on television, you'll often see products advertised as 'trans fat free' or 'low in trans fat.' It can be difficult to know whether you ought to fill the kitchen cupboard of your King West Condos with these foods if you're not really sure what trans fats are. Here at Food Watch, we believe that an educated eater is a healthy eater. That's why we've compiled this article on trans fats - to help you learn how to make healthier food choices.

Fat is generally regarded as a bad thing, but in fact fat is an important dietary component. Without it our bodies wouldn't be able to absorb certain kinds of vitamins, like Vitamin A and Vitamin D, which are essential, and it wouldn't be able to store sustenance for times of crisis. However, there are four different kinds of fats, some of which are more likely to prevent you from being able to fit through the door at 1430 Yonge Street than others. The four types are polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, saturated, and trans. Unsaturated fats are the healthiest, and trans are the unhealthiest.

Trans fats are found naturally in dairy products, meat, and refined oils, but only in small quantities. Most trans fats end up in foods because the oils they contain have been saturated, or turned into a more solid form, to create products like shortening and margarine. The most common source of trans fats (which often comes up in suits of class action in Canada) is fast food. However, other junk food products, such as snack cakes, pastries, potato chips, and hard margarine, also contains high levels of trans fats. It is the trans fats that give these food their appealing texture and taste.

Trans fats make food taste the best, but they also have the worst effect on your health. While unsaturated fats are actually good for you, trans fats increase your risk of developing heart disease. It does so by affecting your blood cholesterol levels. There are two kinds of cholesterol, HDL (which is good) and LDL (which is bad). Trans fats raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol, which is why you should allow as few items of high trans fat food into your Leaside real estate as possible. That doesn't mean giving up these foods for good, just eating them in moderation.

The most important thing you can do to reduce your intake of trans fats is to read the nutritional information on all of the foods you buy. The government requires all food producers to indicate how much trans fat a product has. You may be surprised at how many foods have it. Reducing trans fats is easier than undergoing anger therapy for your weight issues, so start at the beginning.