The Ministry of Health (MOH) has stressed the risks of hydrogenated oils on both individuals and the community, as well as their related diseases, including: hypertension, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, as well as HDL cholesterol deficiency.
In an awareness video on its twitter page - one of MOH"s works in "Wa3i" award, MOH has elaborated on the process of hydrogenating oils by some companies to extend the product's shelf life, and to preserve its taste and texture.
This process of transforming liquid oils into solid products is very harmful, due to heating oils in special boilers under high temperatures. Then, hydrogen is injected under very high pressure. This hydrogenation eradicates the nutritive elements, and destroys the healthy specs of vegetable oil. The video also showed that vegetable oil increases LDL cholesterol, cause coronary diseases, undermines the immune system, and boosts obesity and type 2 diabetes.
It is noted that a group of researchers at Harvard University has found out that replacing hydrogenated oils with unsaturated vegetable fats reduces the risk of diabetes by 40%. The video also shows that many countries have banned hydrogenated oils, including: Denmark, Hungary, and Jordan.
According to the video, such trans fats are found in several sources, mostly consumed by manufactured products, such as: fast food, ready bakeries, packaged pies, instant soup stock, noodles, potato chips, frozen fried food, some types of peanut butter and non-dairy creamers or coffee whiteners. We should read the components of any product before buying it to make that it does not have any of these expressions (partly hydrogenated, vegetable ghee or margarine),