How can typical processing methods alter fats and endanger health?
Foremost among destructive processing methods are hydrogenation (or hardening), frying, and the processes used to make cooking (refined, bleached, deodorized [RBD]) oils. Hydrogenation, which is used to turn oils into margarine, shortening, or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, produces trans- fatty acids, which are twisted molecules. Twisted, their shape changes, and they lose their health benefits and acquire toxicity instead. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, trans- fatty acids double risk of heath attack, kill at least 30,000 Americans every year, and increase diabetes. Other research shows that they interfere with vision in children, interfere with cerebral cortex function (lower intelligence), interfere with liver detoxification, make platelets more sticky, correlate with increased prostate and breast cancers, interfere with insulin function, and in animals (no human studies done) interfere with reproduction. They also interfere with EFA functions, and make EFA
