Costco Wake-Up Call!

So, this blog can make your life happier, healthier, and longer! Last week, I was standing in the check-out line at Costco, lost in thought, thinking about kid pick-up at the Elementary School. I didn’t want to be late and it seems that I am always running out of time at this point of my day. My food was being scanned by the check-out clerk, and I was clarifying with the cart-loading-guy, “no boxes.” That’s when the guy in line behind me spoke up. 

He said, “You know, you have so many high quality organic foods here: kale, chicken, milk, apples, and so on.” Then he went on to say, “It just doesn’t make sense.” I was hooked. What was he going to say next?

He said, “I normally wouldn’t say this but with all of the healthy foods in the cart I am concerned about those,” and he pointed to the Kirkland All Beef Hot Dogs! At that point, he confessed to being a Fourth Year Medical Student and was very concerned about trans fats because, with rare exception, they are not naturally occurring so the body does not have a way to process them. They are created in a factory by adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils (hydrogenated oil) causing them to increase in density.

I had never had trans fats explained to me. This was really useful information for someone who’s fairly health-conscious. I had always focused on the “100% Beef” on the label, not the 1 gram of trans fat per dog. After checking out mercola.com (“World’s #1 Natural Health Website”) and heart.org (American Heart Association) I learned that trans fat consumption is a key player in heart disease and clogged arteries, and is connected to dementia, Alzheimer’s, strokes, and type 2 diabetes.

Now, I am doing my best to help my family stay away from trans fats. Saturated fats are not the really bad fats any more. Since saturated fat is naturally occurring our bodies can process it. Trans fats are not that way – yikes! They are very, very bad – Factory Bad.

As a result of that day at Costco, I am hoping to steer clear of oils (other than coconut oil) and foods with trans fats. (One piece of good news: the FDA has banned partially hydrogenated oils from foods starting in 2018.) 

Later that day, I headed to Whole Foods (hoping it wouldn’t be “whole paycheck”) where I found the most perfect and healthy hot dogs for our family. They were only twice as much as the Costco per-dog-price, which I thought was actually pretty good.

Unprocessed meats don’t have factory produced trans fat so that is another great choice - so maybe go see the butcher. I want to make the world a better place so I just thought I had to share this with the begwen community as there are so many of us foodies who are trying our best, but still missing the mark.

Looking ahead: I hope that we all have many days of joy and health ahead of us thanks to the med student in the Costco line. Let's share this with our friends and families and get this news out there - just like that med student did for me. :)

(Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor or nutritionist. Just a mom with a lot of mouths to feed. J)