In what foods do you find trans fat?

Ninety-five percent of the trans fat in our American food choices comes from partially hydrogenated oil found primarily in margarine and shortening, and of course in foods that are made using margarine or shortening: cakes, cookies, snack crackers, doughnuts and chips. Foods that are commercially deep-fat fried, such as french fries and fried fish, also may contain trans fatty acids.

You might be surprised to find out that some foods we consider healthy, such as some types of breakfast bars or granola, may contain trans fatty acids.

Reading a food label for trans fat

Trans fat content is listed as grams per serving to the nearest 0.5-gram increment below 5 grams, and to the nearest gram above 5 grams. If a serving contains less than 0.5 gram of trans fat, the content, when declared, must be expressed as "0g."

A word of caution: Just because a food label lists 0 grams trans fat does not mean it's free of trans fatty acids. It could contain 0.49 grams of trans fat per serving; if you ate two servings, you'd get almost 1 gram of trans fat. Check the ingredient list for words such as "shortening," "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" or "hydrogenated vegetable oil." Those mean the food contains trans fat -- even if "trans fat 0g" is on the label.

This is where paying attention to serving sizes is crucial! If you eat only one serving of a food that contains 0.49 grams trans fat, that's much better than eating two, three or even four servings of that same food and getting almost 2 grams of trans fat or more.