Understanding Trans Fat Dangers: What You Need to Know Today

Do you remember when doctors told everyone cigarettes were safe? That seems crazy now, but it happened. It's a scary reminder that experts don't always get it right.

We're still uncovering serious trans fat dangers that were once promoted as a healthy alternative to saturated fats.

The story of this manmade fat reveals a lot about our food system. It also shows the incredible power of one person who refused to give up the fight. He saw the trans fat dangers long before anyone else.

Who Was Fred Kummerow?

We need to talk about Fred Kummerow. For decades, the scientific community dismissed him and his findings. But he followed his own findings and lived to a ripe old age.

Today, he's celebrated as a public health hero whose work likely saved millions of other lives from coronary heart disease.

His journey started at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1930s. He was a young biochemistry PhD student studying fatty acids.

Kummerow's work led him to a research position at the University of Illinois, where he received funding to explore the chemistry of fats and their impact on human health.

A Shocking Discovery in the Lab

Kummerow and his team did something profound in the 1950s. They studied the autopsies of people who died from heart disease. What they found inside their arteries was startling and completely contradicted mainstream thought.

Every single clogged artery was filled with one particular type of fat. And it was not saturated fat, the supposed villain of the day. It was a specific manmade fat called trans fat, or a trans fatty acids, which was being sold to the public as a healthier choice.

Kummerow published his findings in 1957. His paper in the journal Science made a powerful case. It linked trans fats directly to coronary heart disease. And yet the medical world ignored him. He went on to wage a 50-year campaign to ban trans fat dangers.

When "Healthy" Advice Goes Wrong

At that time, the mainstream narrative was simple. Influential but flawed research had pointed the finger at cholesterol and saturated fats as the main causes of heart disease. Americans were told to avoid butter, lard, and other animal fats at all costs.

Instead, they were steered towards margarine, shortening (Crisco), and other products made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. It's advice that seems totally backward today.

But back then, this created a perfect environment for industrially produced trans fats to thrive in many food products. And in fact, trans fats live on to this day in sneaky ways, but more on that in a moment.

What Are Trans Fats, Anyway?

Margarine and shortening are not natural products in the least. They're made through an industrial process called partial hydrogenation. This process bubbles hydrogen gas through liquid vegetable oils, like soybean or cottonseed oil, to turn them into solids.

Why do this? It alters the chemical structure of an unsaturated fat, creating a new type of molecule called a trans fatty acid.

The newly created fat improved texture and gave products like crackers, cookies, and pies a much longer shelf life, which as you can imagine was a huge advantage for food companies.

For these companies, trans-fatty oils were a dream. They were cheaper than butter, lasted forever, and were cholesterol-free, fitting the day's misguided dietary advice perfectly.

Big food had no interest in questioning the status quo on fat intake and the healthiness of this industrially produced fat. So, the trans fat dangers were widely ignored in the public space.

Artificial vs. Natural Trans Fats

It is important to know that not all trans fats are created equal. The vast majority found in processed food are the artificial, industrially produced trans fats created through hydrogenation.

These are the ones strongly linked to trans fat dangers and negative health outcomes. However, small amounts of natural trans fats exist in some animal products. These are formed in the guts of ruminant animals like cows and sheep.

You can find this natural trans fat in some dairy products and meats, but they're present in very small quantities and are not considered as harmful.

Devastating Health Effects of Trans Fatty Acids

The primary danger of consuming trans fatty acids is their impact on cholesterol levels. They raise your LDL (low-density lipoprotein), often called "bad" cholesterol. Simultaneously, they lower your HDL (high-density lipoprotein), or "good" cholesterol.

This double whammy is especially damaging for heart health. High LDL adds to the buildup of plaque in arteries, a condition known as atherosclerosis.

Lower HDL means your body is less efficient at removing excess cholesterol from your arteries, increasing the risk of a coronary heart event.

The health problems don't stop there. A diet high in trans fat is also linked to higher inflammation throughout the body.

Chronic inflammation is a contributing factor to many serious conditions, including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. You absolutely want to eat an anti-inflammatory diet to avoid these risks.

A Lone Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Kummerow didn't stop with his 1957 paper. Throughout the 1970s, he built more evidence against trans fats. He ran a compelling study using pigs, whose cardiovascular systems are very similar to humans.

He found that a diet rich in margarine was far worse for heart disease risk than a diet high in cholesterol. This proof led him to strongly warn against any foods with trans fats.

A diet high in saturated fatty acids was less harmful than one filled with unsaturated fatty acids that had been hydrogenated.

He even appeared before the Federal Trade Commission in 1975 to lay out his case, hoping for action. But he was scorned instead of being taken seriously.

He believed the food industry had excessive influence over science, a feeling he expressed in interviews later in his life.

The Tide Finally Turns

Decades passed, and Kummerow's theory finally caught the attention of someone with major influence -- Walter Willett, a Harvard professor.

Willett was the lead researcher for the Nurses' Health Study, a massive, long-term health study that tracked the diets and health of tens of thousands of women.

Willett decided to include the consumption of trans fatty acids in his dietary analysis of over 85,000 women. The results, published in The Lancet in 1993, were a bombshell.

The study showed a 50 percent higher heart disease risk in women who ate the most trans fats.

It specifically named margarine, cookies, cake, and white bread as being associated with higher risks. After more than thirty years, Kummerow's work was finally validated on a massive scale.

The Long Challenging Road to a Trans Fat Ban

With this new Harvard study, the public started paying attention. The Center for Science in the Public Interest sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They demanded that trans fats be listed on food nutrition labels.

The wheels of government turn slowly, but the lawsuit worked. In 2003, the FDA made trans fats labeling a requirement, which took effect in 2006. This gave people crucial information about the fats in their packaged foods for the first time.

Kummerow felt this wasn't nearly enough, based on a lifetime of research. At age 94, he filed a petition to ban partially hydrogenated oils in 2009. The FDA did nothing, so four years later in 2013, at age 98, he sued the FDA for their failure to act.

This finally got their attention. In 2015, the FDA officially declared that partially hydrogenated oils were no longer recognized as safe for use in food.

The World Health Organization followed, calling for a global ban on industrially produced trans fat.

The Sneaky Loophole You Still Need to Watch For

You might think the story ends there, but there's a catch. We still haven't completely eliminated artificial trans fats from our food supply. The FDA ban came with a frustrating loophole.

Food manufacturers can still use trans fats in their products if the amount is below 0.5 grams per serving. If a product has 0.49 grams per serving, the company can legally list "0g Trans Fat" on the nutrition label.

And they can (and do) lower the serving size to fit that criteria. If you eat a few servings, those small amounts add up quickly.

So how do you protect yourself? You must become an ingredient detective. Ignore the front of the box and turn it over to read the ingredients list.

If you see the words "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" or "partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening," put the item back on the shelf!

Here are some everyday favorites where trans fats often show up:

• Baked Goods – Store-bought pies, cakes, cookies, and doughnuts.
• Fried Foods – French fries, fried chicken, and onion rings.
• Snack Foods – Many crackers, chips, and microwave popcorn.
• Refrigerated Dough – Canned biscuits, cinnamon rolls, and pizza crusts.
• Frozen Foods – Frozen pizza, pot pies, casseroles, and breaded fish sticks.
• Creamers & Toppings – Nondairy coffee creamers and some whipped toppings.

Reading labels is the only way to be certain. Any food from a fast food restaurant or in a package of any kind deserves a second look at the label.

Your best bet is to buy fresh ingredients and prepare foods yourself with one-ingredient items such as butter or olive oil. That way you'll avoid trans-fats, which are widespread in highly processed foods with a long shelf life.

The longer a food will last without refrigeration or freezing, the more suspect the ingredient list and more likely it contains trans fats. If it's in a bag or a box, be cautious.

What Fred's Story Teaches Us Today

Fred Kummerow passed away in 2017 at the ripe old age of 102, which should be a testimony about the efficacy of his research and how he himself ate. His story suggests that we can't always wait for official guidance to tell us what is safe.

The bureaucratic system is infinitely slow to react, and industry pressure can slow things down even more. We must each take a smart, precautionary approach to our own health.

When strong evidence suggests something could be harmful, it's on us to weigh the risks and benefits. You can research topics yourself using resources like Google Scholar or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ to find scientific studies.

You can enter an area of interest in the search bar. In this case, it could be "partially hydrogenated fats," or "trans fats." You look at the primary data instead of just headlines.

Then you can make informed choices, like shunning monounsaturated fat and switching to saturated fatty acids such as are found in butter, beef, and dairy.

A practical strategy is to control what you can.

Cook at home with stable, healthy fats like olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, or butter. Choose brands and food products that avoid hydrogenated oils at least 80% of the time.

Conclusion

The story of Fred Kummerow is a powerful reminder of what research and perseverance can accomplish.

For decades, he fought to expose the trans fats dangers that the food industry and even governments overlooked—dangers strongly linked to heart disease.

His tireless advocacy not only changed public policy but also helped him live to 102, proving the impact of standing up for health.

Thanks to efforts like his, great progress has been made in removing trans fats dangers from our food supply.

Still, vigilance is essential. Processed foods may contain hidden trans fats and avoiding them means reading labels carefully and prioritizing whole, unprocessed foods.

In the end, being an informed consumer remains the strongest defense against the lingering risks of trans fats dangers.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are trans fat dangers to be aware of?

Trans fats are artificial fats created by hydrogenating vegetable oils to make them solid. This process alters otherwise unsaturated fats into a harmful form the body struggles to process.

Trans fats dangers include raising LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, lowering HDL (“good”) cholesterol, and driving inflammation—all of which increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and other chronic conditions.

2. What foods still contain hidden trans fat dangers?

Even after the FDA ban, small amounts of trans fats remain in processed foods such as packaged cookies, crackers, microwave popcorn, fried fast foods, nondairy creamers, and frozen pizzas.

Always check labels for “partially hydrogenated oils” or "shortening."

3. How did Fred Kummerow help expose the dangers of trans fats?

Fred Kummerow was a biochemist who first published research in 1957 linking trans fats to clogged arteries and coronary heart disease.

Though ignored and scorned for decades, his persistence eventually produced research and policy that led to the FDA’s trans fat ban.

4. Are natural trans fats in dairy and meat just as harmful?

No. Small amounts of naturally occurring trans fats found in dairy and ruminant meats are not linked to the same health risks as industrially produced trans fats.

The main trans fat dangers come from artificial trans fats created in factories for processed and fried foods.

5. How can I avoid trans fats completely?

Read ingredient labels and avoid anything with “partially hydrogenated oils” or “shortening.” Choose whole, fresh foods and cook at home with stable fats like butter, olive oil, or avocado oil.

Limiting high processed foods is your most effective defense against trans fat dangers.