TO UNDERSTAND WHAT TRANS FATS ARE, let’s go back to our description of an unsaturated fat. In the diagram below, look at the carbon atoms shown in bold. The hydrogen atoms connected to those two carbon atoms are both on the same side. This is called being in the “cis configuration.” Cis, in Latin, means “on this side of.” When both hydrogen atoms are on the same side, they repel each other, causing a bend in the molecule. This bend makes it harder to stack one molecule on top of another. Molecules that don’t stack well are hard to crystallize or, said another way, they are hard to make into a
...more
