Thanks. I\'m not really worried about myself, I don\'t touch any of that crap. I have a genetic disorder called celiac sprue that basically shuts down my digestive system if I eat certain kinds of gluten, and gluten is in EVERYTHING (almost all spices, most lunch meats, etc. I also can\'t lick postage stamps).

I was asking more because my roommate is dieting (Weight Watchers) and basically doesn\'t eat any natural foods (save for meats, and fruits and vegetables etc). She is also extremely uninformed about nutrition (as in if any kind of authority figure says something it must be true) and very unwilling to change any of her beliefs when presented with evidence.

I feel bad for her because she is always tired and gets sick frequently (she is also quite overweight and smokes), and she refuses to believe that nutrition is the root of her problems, which I believe it is.

I know a lot of people like her too. The current nutritional gurus have some how equated healthy with losing weight. My roommate will put a huge amount of fake butter on a piece of toast because it\'s \"healthy\", and she wonders why she only drops a couple pounds per month.

Back to my question though: As I understand it, there are three main types of fat (saturated, and mono/poly unsaturated). Saturated fats have no more room for hydrogen atoms, monounsaturated have room for one more, and polyunsaturated have room for two or more. Only saturated fats are solid at room temp. I don\'t think that hydrogenated fats are \"quasisaturated\", they are fully saturated and have the same chemical shape as a normal saturated fat. The difference is that hydrogenated fats \"fold\" differently and have a different physical shape that normal saturated fats, and this is called a trans fat (I believe the correct term is that they are \"isomers\"). And your body doesn\'t know what to do with them.

So assuming this is all correct, (once again) what is keeping the stuff solid?

And my main question (which is really stumping me) is if something has as one of it\'s ingredients \"partially hydrogenated oil\", how can they say it has no trans fats? I think my question stems from the word \"partially.\" Does that mean that only some of the spaces are filled with hydrogen atoms? If that is true, then once again how is the stuff solid? I\'m pretty sure I\'m correct on that (that only saturated fats are solid at room temp).

Whew! Sorry for the ranting post.