美国政府建议禁止加工食品使用人造反式脂肪

- With so many foods to choose from, it can be hard to navigate. And we're going to try to figure out what's murky in these ingredients because sometimes it says it has no trans fats and it might have trans fats. Not all the foods here have trans fats in them. That's not what we're saying. We have a variety here. And some of this is my favorite diet. So I want to bring in the experts now.

Joining me in studio is Alexis Towersey. She's a personal trainer and lifestyle coach. And on Skype, from Charlotte, North Carolina, is Vani Hari, the creator of foodbabe.com. so If I call her food babe, don't get offended. She's calls herself the food babe. Foodbabe.com.

Alexis, I want to start with you. Let's begin with out stomachs and the products in front of us. Because it's a little murky because sometimes it says it doesn't have it, but it does.

- Yeah, but when the FDA first said that, you know, food manufacturing companies had to basically put the food labeling on there and tell you how much fat and trans fat was actually in a product, even though it says zero grams of trans fat on there, it doesn't necessarily means it has zero grams of trans fat.

- Like this. My executive producer and I, Vickie Russell, were, like, this was our diet growing up. In our lunch pail, we had Funyuns or Cheetos or whatever. It says zero trans fats and when you go down there it says hydrogenated soybean oil. Does that mean trans fats?

-  Yes. Partially hydrogenated oils are trans fats. So the regulations state that the food labels must have the trans fat amount on there, but if it is under  0.5 grams, they don't actually have to declare it. It could zero grams trans fats but if you go on to the ingredients it may say partially hydrogenated oils.

- If we look at this. oh, my gosh. Do you remember honey buns, right? This honey bun has 0.5 grams of trans fats. Do they have to declare that?

- No. They don't have to declare anything less than 0.5. So, here's where the tricky situation comes in, is if you eat more than one serving, you could get more than a gram or maybe four or five grams of trans fat in one serving. And one popular product that has trans fat is microwave popcorn. I don't know when the last time you ate popcorn, Don, but I don't eat one cup, I eat one bowl. This is a real concern that trans fats are still allowed in foods when the label says zero.

- Here you go. Because I went and bought this today just for this prop and I opened it and -

- And you ate it?

-Rosa Perez -- Rosa Flores -- Rosa Perez, I can't believe I called her that. Rosa and I ate this popcorn as soon as we opened it, as soon as we got it here. Listen, Vani, why does it taste so good and it's so bad for you?

-Well, you know, the thing is, is trans fat inherently doesn't taste that different than real fat. What trans fat's does is it allowed food companies to create a shelf-stable oil that stays on the shelf forever basically and allows --

-But what's wrong with that, then? What's wrong with that?

- Well, what's wrong with that, it's clogging our arteries. It's causing up to two -- I'm sorry, 20,000 heart attacks a year and up to 7,000 deaths. I mean, just a 40-calorie increase of trans fat in your diet increases your heart rate risk -- heart disease rate risk to 23 percent. That's an astronomical.

- OK.

- We should be, I mean, eating really healthy fats.

-Listen, if Rosa and I only eat these once a month or once every three months or what have you, it's moderation, what's the big deal?

- No trans fats are good for you. Like, no trans fats are good for you. You can't argue for it in any way. There's no nutritional value. And you could make a better alternative by yourself.

- But Vodka isn't good for you, but if I have a couple glasses of vodka, what is it --

- Well, I guess, no one's perfect. But the thing is people don't realize you can eat the same foods, you just have to be really aware of how you're preparing it. You just have to prepare it differently.