Oh Boy...
Picture this, and please bear with me...
Three young men are approaching a public pool. Johnny, Sam and Todd. Johnny is an ‘A’ class bully, a real terror. Sam and Todd can be rebel rousers, but left to their own, they usually stay out of trouble. That is until Johnny shows up. Johnny is just the catalyst that Sam and Todd need to start some trouble and the authorities at the pool know it! So, any time Sam, Todd and Johnny show up together, the pool attendants at the gate are instructed to not let the group in to the pool area, avoiding certain problems.
Still with me? Trust me, this will get interesting.
One day Sam and Todd showed up sans Johnny. The attendant at the gate saw no danger without the presence of Johnny and let the boys through. Little did they know that Johnny was lurking in the bushes, waiting for a change of guard. Sure enough, as soon as the attendant took a break, Johnny waltzed up to the gate and the unassuming new attendant let him through thinking that Johnny by himself wouldn’t be a problem. Almost no time passed before the trio had met up and almost instantaneously started a fight. The attendants had been fooled, the three boys had reconvened and the day at the pool was spoiled for everyone.
Where am I going you ask?
Triglycerides, aka, cholesterol. The bane of healthy living. A single molecule of glycerol combined with three fatty acids.
Note that cholesterol is a necessary part of our diet and even produced by almost every cell in the body when we are low on the intake of fats and used for all sorts of body functions.
But, our current diets have overloaded our bodies with cholesterol or triglycerides. The results have been increased obesity, leading to diabetes, high blood pressure and increased chance of heart disease.
So, enter stage right the food industry. They have trouble at first substituting anything for cholesterol in food. After all, fats are a major player in all things food, from baking to frying to cohesive mixing. But the industry is determined to create "cholesterol free" foods.
Then, hairs are split, semantics are spilled and FDA heads are turned. The industry discovers that they can split the tri (three)glyceride molecule into mono(one)glycerides and di(two)glycerides and these new derivatives have the same usefulness in food! Here’s the kicker, when triglycerides are broken into mono and diglycerides, they aren’t technically cholesterol anymore, so, food industry types can use them in their products and claim to purvey a "cholesterol free" item.
Here’s what they may or may not know and you don’t. When our bodies ingest cholesterol (triglycerides), the path they take to our blood stream from our intestines is too small for them to fit. So, our amazing bodies use an enzyme to break the triglycerides into mono and diglycerides. These pass through the intestines to our blood. There our bodies use another enzyme to recombine the mono and diglycerides into, you guessed it, triglycerides or cholesterol.
You may be getting the picture now, but I’ll go on. When we ingest "cholesterol free" products containing mono(Johnny) and diglycerides(Sam and Todd), our bodies (the attendant about to go on break) don’t have to do the work to split up the molecule(Johnny, Sam and Todd). The three pass through into our blood stream(the public pool) and are quickly recombined in to triglycerides or cholesterol(ensuing fight or heart disease ensues).
You see, we’re being duped. There are some exceptions, but look at almost any product claiming to be "cholesterol free and you’ll find mono and diglycerides in the ingredients. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Smarten up, you’ll live longer.
FV