Crisco

I used Crisco as the classic example of hydrogenation and trans fats to a friend, and she was corrected when she passed that factoid on. What? So I had to look into it, and I don't even care about Crisco; I've never bought the solid stuff.

Crisco was the great-grandaddy of hydrogenation, so I wasn't making that up. [I especially like that picture of cis versus trans at Wikipedia. You can see that trans is electrically favorable, and straight like saturated fats.]

But I found an article that yeah, it's true (now) that Crisco has no trans fats. Or at least sort of true ... I checked at the grocery store, and Crisco is not reporting that last little 0.5 gram per serving of trans fat.

And don't forget that trans fats might not be as bad as advertised since the statistical analysis was poor according to JunkScience: the conclusions do not follow from the statistical analysis of the study, so it could be right or wrong.

My approach to dietary fat goes like this:

• vegetable source, no problem (like olive oil or any EFA source)
• animal source, try to limit (for less cholesterol and saturated fat)
• try to reduce overall fat intake
• trans fat: if it's tasty, I'm not afraid of it; like most fats, I try to reduce intake

But what a world, when Crisco is no longer hydrogenated with (many) trans fats ...