On the latest edition of the Ask Prof Noakes Podcast the we chat to Professor Tim Noakes about transfats. Brad Brown asks the Prof what a hydrogenated oil or partially hydrogenated oil is and most importantly is hydrogenated oil bad for you and why you should avoid them on the LCHF diet.

In 1912, two guys – Proctor and Gamble, who lived in Cincinnati Ohio in the United States of America – were producing candles. And guess what happened in 1912? Electricity came along. So they no longer had a product to sell and their candle business went down.

They decided to take their technology in hydrogenating soy and corn oil and solidifying these liquid oils, and produced a “health product†called margarine.

They produced a product called “Criscoâ€, which they marketed in the early 1912’s across America as healthier than butter and lard, and it could be used as a substitute.

It was a vegetable oil which had been hydrogenated so now it was solid at room temperature so it could replace butter and lard, which were the premier forms of cooking and eating fats in the United States of America. They marketed it as a health product, and they were brilliantly successful. READ MORE