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MARY HONDROS: Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard the latest news about transfats. This type of fat happens when you take a vegetable oil and you partially hydrogenate it. So you change the structure from liquid to solid by changing the chemical structure of the fat. What happens is that this type of fat gets in the body and it acts as--to raise your LDL or your bad cholesterol in your body.
 it is a very unhealthy type of fat. Transfats are typically found in most baked and processed goods like baked chips or regular chips, baked snacks, donuts, anything that is preprocessed or prepackaged. About 80% of transfat are found in prepackaged foods and the other 20% actually occur naturally in meat and milk products. So, the key to making sure that you are not getting too much transfat in your diet includes always checking food labels. Now that food labels are required to have transfat on them, you'll usually see a product listed as either transfat free of if the food has transfat and then it will be listed on the back under total fat. So, some tips on making sure you are not getting a transfat in your diet include: number one, read your food labels because transfat is required to be listed.
Keep in mind that if a food has less than half a gram of transfat, it can be listed as transfat free. This means that you can still be getting transfat from foods that you think are transfat free if you are eating more of the serving size that you need to be. About five grams a day is enough to cause you harm. Secondly, limit the amount of processed foods that you eat.
The fresher you eat your food the less exposure you are going to get to transfats. Thirdly, remember to reduce your meat and milk intake because those actually have naturally occurring transfats in them, so keep your serving sizes smaller and limit it to three servings a day. And lastly, remember that not all transfats are going to be listed on your labels, so stick to the serving size of your foods. And those are four tips on keeping transfats out of your diet.