Trans Fat and The SnackWell Effect

Trans Fat and The SnackWell Effect in General Healthcare

New York City and Boston were the first to send trans fats on the run. Other cities and states have been slower to ban the artery-clogging fat, but are proposing bans and restrictions.

The wave of global awareness on how bad trans fats truly are for your health is almost like a fad.

But some health care experts are worried that the anti-trans fat buzz might send the wrong signal. They’re warning against the “SnackWell effect” (or the “SnackWell syndrome”).

What is the SnackWell effect?

Back in the 1990s, food manufacturers started to make low-fat and fat-free cookies, including the SnackWell Devils Food cookies. It wasn’t long before these cookies became a big hit with dieters. Retail and grocery stores frequently sold out of them.

In fact, SnackWell’s low-fat cookies were such a hit they’re one of the most successful product launches in the history of the food industry, wrote the Chicago Tribune.

The problem was that people mistakenly thought it’s only the fat in foods that causes weight gain. They also believed they could eat as many fat-free cookies as they wanted without gaining a thing.

But putting on the pounds is a result of consuming more calories than burning them. So eating a whole box of fat-free cookies could add hundreds of calories to your diet.

When consumers realized the cookies weren’t helping their weight-loss efforts, SnackWell’s sales plummeted.

As for trans fats, the SnackWell effect would happen if people started to believe all foods without trans fat were healthy.

“Trans fat-free fried chicken or trans fat-free doughnuts are hardly an improvement. It can even backfire, with people thinking, now there are healthy French fries[!]” said health care author Michele Simon in the Baltimore Sun.

Keep in mind that all trans fat-free foods aren’t all necessarily healthy. They could contain saturated fat — which can raise your cholesterol, cause high blood pressure, and pose many other heart-health risks.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the average person shouldn’t eat more than 20 grams of saturated fat per day — and less than 2 grams of trans fat daily.

Another thing to remember: Foods labeled “0 trans fat” could be misleading. The Food and Drug Administration lets manufacturers put “0 trans fat” on the label if there is one-half gram or less of trans fat per serving.

So, how can you pick out foods with trans fat? Read the ingredients list.

Trans fat comes from the process of artificially hydrogenating oils. If “partially hydrogenated oil” is listed anywhere in the ingredients, then the food does have trans fat.

While taking trans fats out of the picture is a good thing, it’s not the only dietary health risks.

“We’re certainly going in the right direction. It’s kind of the buzzword these days, but [removing trans fats] only doing half the job,” said Dr. Michael Miller, who is the director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

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