Almost every time I assume something, I am wrong. Take trans fat, for instance. I assumed a majority of people were clued in to this harmful substance, but in February I read an eye-opener about a major study that found only 17% of Americans could name three foods that have trans fats. 17%. Nearly everyone knew it’s hazardous and it’s listed on labels so it’s baffling how 83% were stumped, unless they don’t care.
The first three I thought of were all those individually-wrapped snack cakes and pies, most cake mixes and every mass market canned frosting I’ve ever looked at, and I think I’ve looked at them all.
Men’s Health and its sister magazine Women’s Health went a step farther for their Eat This, Not That! series and named the 10 trans-fattiest foods in American supermarkets.
The worst cookie comes in at #10, Pillsbury White Chunk Macadamia Nut Big Deluxe Classics. One cookie has 2g trans fat, slightly more than the daily maximum considered safe by the American Heart Association. Women’s Health says, “Refrigerated you-bake products are a breeding ground for trans fat.” If you don’t believe it, look at cans of pre-fab biscuits or dinner rolls and gasp, as I did, at the trans fats.
In fact, dinner breads are #6 on the list, with Pillsbury Perfect Portions Buttermilk Biscuits the worst offender. They have 4g trans fat per biscuit, compared with 1g for the “Eat This” alternative, Pillsbury Crusty French Oven Baked Dinner Rolls, and 0g for the buttermilk biscuits I posted last year. Pillsbury makes the “Not That” list again at #4, Breakfast Pastry: Pillsbury Grands! Flaky Supreme Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls with Icing have 5g each, compared with 0g Pepperidge Farm Raisin Cinnamon Swirl Bread.
Snacks are #2 on the trans-fattiest list, topped by Pop-Secret Kettle Corn with 6g per one-cup serving. Of course, each bag has more than one cup. “This box has three bags of popcorn, which means every time you buy it, you’re bringing 54 grams of dangerous trans fat into your house,” the magazine says.
And the worst of them all? One of those snacks I thought of. Drake’s Cherry Fruit Pies, a pack of two small pies, is deemed the Trans-Fattiest Food in the Supermarket with 8g trans fat and 27 fat grams in all. As the article puts it, “Individually wrapped snacks are a festering cesspool of partially hydrogenated oils. With these mini pies, you’ll gobble down more than 4 days’ worth of trans fat! Make sure you have your doctor on speed dial.”
Copyright (C) 2009 From Scratch All Rights Reserved 
Print This Post
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Good heavens! I don’t buy any of the things on the list, but I wouldn’t have guessed the rankings. Those ready-baked rolls and such are really scary!
MusEditions’s last blog post..A wedding, a birthday, and a funeral
I’m glad you don’t. We want to keep you around! What’s really scary is there are people who eat all those things and feed them to their children. I know a few. One had a heart attack when she was 46.
Back from my foray into the Mississippi delta and completely amused at the number of times I thought of you during the trip.
1. When I ordered the catfish stuffed with etoufee at Uncle Henry’s and thought, “I could get this grilled”.
2. When I ate the fried catfish and sweet potato french fries at the Ground Zero blues club – best I ever put in my mouth.
3. When I confronted the “basic southern breakfast” of eggs, bacon, biscuits with sausage gravy, grits with butter, and hash browns fried in butter.
4. When I walked into a variety of gas stations and convenience stores and made my usual beeline for the Pringles (peanut butter crackers, rice krispie treats, RC cola…) It was transfat heaven.
What I discovered is that you CAN eat a fairly healthy and balanced diet while traveling, but it is a whole bunch of work, and requires trips to grocery stores. I don’t know why I want junk food while traveling, but I do – it’s the only time I want M&Ms – but I beat myself about the head and ears and told myself, “Miss Ella wouldn’t like this!”
I had a wonderful time and despite it all only put on two pounds. It had to have been the bourbon-pecan pie, or maybe that sweet potato pudding…..
shoreacres’s last blog post..Headin’ Down to the Crossroads
Welcome back! Sounds like a great (filling, hee) trip.
Hey, I’m not the food police. I can’t even police myself 100%. But I do think it’s clear from the information and research we have at this point (I keep in mind the dictat on eggs has changed a billion times) that trans fats kill people. Pretty simple.
By the same token, HFCS is implicated but not proven beyond a doubt as a major player in diabetes, which kills people. Avoiding it is harder than avoiding trans fat, so when I see — as I did with the post about the strawberry jam labels — that Smucker’s sells one version in Canada and another here that’s loaded with HFCS, corn syrup and far more sugar I can’t help but get angry. That huge conglomerate has proved it’s possible to make the product without the HFCS or any corn syrup at all, so why aren’t they selling it here? Millions of Americans equate Smucker’s with jams and jellies and just grab it off the shelf and hand over their dead presidents without a thought.
But I digress. Fresh, hot grits with butter, salt and pepper is breakfast food from the gods. I’d have eaten mine, yours and the guy at the next table’s. Then I’d have started over!
Oh, my! I didn’t mean to intimate I thought of you as the food police.
The trip simply revealed how much I’ve learned here about food, and how that knowledge has re-shaped my decision-making process. It’s even possible that customer demand is shaping what’s offered. I didn’t go into a single gas station or convenience store along the way where I could find at least a banana or apple.
Has anyone ever written a book about road food? It’s occurring to me this very minute – that could be very, very interesting. Travel and food – with a side of music. What could be better?
shoreacres’s last blog post..Headin’ Down to the Crossroads
Thanks for the clarification. I did take it the other way.
There certainly are books about road food; Jane and Michael Stern, who are noted food and pop culture historians, wrote the most famous one, which is called – ta da! – Roadfood. Interesting stuff. I have one or two of their books and like them.
True story: I was in a convenience/country store here early one autumn morning a couple years ago, waiting to pay for coffee. A woman and her daughter, about 6, were in front of me and holding up the line while the kid was looking for a snack, I guess to take to school, and her mother kept telling her to find something healthier than Little Debbie, etc. I pointed out a basket of local apples and the woman looked at me like I was nuts. Her exact words? “I didn’t mean that healthy!” *sigh* Welcome to America.
And welcome back again, Shore. Sorry for the misunderstanding.