What are "trans fatty acids"?

What are "trans fatty acids"?

Susan Silberstein & Marilyn Joyce (Health and Nutrition Educator & Heath Counselor) gives expert video advice on: How do fats become nutritionally unsafe?; What foods have the most omega-3 fatty acids? and more...

Trans fatty acids are hydrogenated fats. We did was that we hydrogenated (added hydrogen molecules to) the oils in order to preserve their shelf life. Oils are very volatile so they'll go rancid very quickly due to high temperatures (even just hot temperatures in a room) or due to the wrong colour of bottle. You need to buy oils that are in a green or a brown bottle so that the light isn't destroying the oil's molecular structure. However, what they do is they add the hydrogen molecules to create this oil that can sit on a shelf for years, probably in many cases, but what you're getting is a rancid fat, but you can't taste the rancidity until it's really rancid. Rancid oil will create free radicals in your body; that's what the result is. Those free radicals are the cause of all degenerative illnesses that we face today. So, you want to avoid oils that are hydrogenated because it's truly a rancid fat that you just don't realise is rancid.