It is unclear how deeply the New York pressure against trans fatty acids and hydrogenated oils is going to affect our dietary and investment landscape. Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) sure jumped up in a hurry to change its ways and KFC a division of Yum Brands (NYSE:YUM), dropped its trans fat ingredients shortly after it was legally taken to task about them. How is this whole scenario going to affect Altria Group (NYSE:MO) and Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT)? If investors who have money tied up with the providers and users of trans fatty oils aren't taking a hard look at their portfolios, well in my opinion, they had better.

I don't think this is going to be a situation taken lightly. As a matter of fact, I see a rather nasty avalanche on the horizon. How long do you think it's going to be before some poor 300-pound soul is going to team up with some sloppy lawyer who has more time than guts and the two of them class- action this thing in a manner similar to the tobacco debacle of the 80s? If you don't think it's going to happen, then I think you need to get out more often.

I imagine there have been some heated meetings in the board rooms of companies who manufacture and market that stabilized oily junk. What do you think they're going to do, keep making it and hope the noise will die down? That will be the game plan of the lame and blind among our corporate food leaders. I guarantee you the bright ones are making hydrogenated exit plans right now.

Does this signal a pitiful writhing death for trans fatty oils? Not if you have an imagination and a couple usable gonads to go with it. How about having someone develop a home-heating system that utilizes the stuff as fuel? It's safe, stable, biodegradable (outside the body), and it even smells good when it burns. Have you ever burned a potato chip? Hey man, that's for real BTUs!!! When you take the components of hydrogenated oils and separate them you have umm, hydrogen and oil. Do you see what I'm getting at?

So don't give up on hydrogenated oils completely, but guard yourself and your investment dollars with care. If your portfolio is laden with trans fats and your companies are exhibiting a wait-and-see attitude, you need to find out if they have alternate plans. If you think this new move to cut fats from your diet will be short lived or quiet, you could be in for more than one kind of heart attack.

The following definitions are courtesy of Answers.com:

Hydrogenated oil: Unsaturated liquid vegetable oil that has had hydrogen catalytically added so as to convert the oil to a hydrogen-saturated solid.

Trans fatty acid: An unsaturated fatty acid produced by the partial hydrogenation of vegetable oils and present in hardened vegetable oils, most margarines, commercial baked foods, and many fried foods. An excess of these fats in the diet is thought to raise the cholesterol level in the bloodstream.

The news seemed so lovely, so sudden, so decisive: effective tomorrow first thing, Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) stores in my hometown, Portland, and in several other major cities (including Seattle, San Francisco, and New York) will replace all trans-fat loaded treats with versions that are free of the artery-clogging stuff.

You'd think I'd be happy. After all, I'm the one who rails on companies for using trans-fats in their foodstuffs, and examines grocery store labels so carefully I did a whole photo essay on it. And both I and my adorable, sugar-crazed kids are frequently found at our local Starbucks, eating the chain's doughnuts, its Cranberry Bliss Bars, its glazed, colorful cookies.

But here's the thing: I didn't realize Starbucks treats had any trans-fats! In announcing this proactive and kind move, Starbucks shook the very foundation of my blissful ignorance. Heading immediately over to Starbucks' web site, I pull up the nutrition information for my local store (since treats are baked locally and different stores have different offerings, each "zone" has its own nutrition sheet). And I am floored.

For nearly 10 years now, I've been fiercely guarding my shopping cart. The wicked would-be interloper: partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, also known as trans fats or trans fatty acids. And it's in everything, from wheat bread to soup to my favorite sticky candy bars. For a while, I was a lone voice and a lone label-reader, inspecting in the wilderness of my grocery store aisles without another soul to fight against the cheap, shelf-stable, yet bad-for-your-heart fat.

In the past few years, a growing public backlash against the stuff, known to contribute to heart disease and obesity, has led to its removal from many major products, from Lay's chips to sandwich cookies. Most Trader Joe's products are now free of the substance (and thus, it's my favorite place to shop). And then, this month, came the New York City ban: no restaurants will be permitted to use trans-fatty acids in cooking oils come July, 2007 -- and trans fats will be banned entirely from all foods available in restaurants by July 2008. This week the Washington State Board of Health announced it was considering a similar ban throughout the northwestern state.

Should you join me and New York City's best (and not-so-best) restaurants? Should you ban trans-fatty acids from your pantry, too? I looked at a bunch of products in my local grocery store to evaluate whether they were worth banning and whether or not my budget could manage it.

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst 2006. If you're a doughnut lover rooting for Krispy Kreme's comeback, cast your vote for it.

Poor Krispy Kreme. People once stood in line for store openings to get their free doughnuts, and the company and brand were the darling of markets and growing well. Who doesn't love a doughnut?

But Krispy Kreme (NYSE:KKD) has fallen from its perch and been dunked in the hot oil of reality: over the past few years the growth of the low-carb awareness -- in the form of Atkins, South Beach, Sugar Busters, and other diets that caused people to cut simple carbohydrates down or out of their diets -- was widespread. Even bread companies complained about the dip in sales.

Then the doughnut company got hit by a second health punch in the form of health awareness about trans fatty acids.

You want to tell customers that they should have realized well before all this that doughnuts obviously aren't good for you? Did anyone seriously think eating doughnuts was somehow not going be a dietary no-no? Were doughnut-eating customers so naive that when they were told these things were unhealthy they suddenly gave them up? If so, it might be a victory for public health awareness, but you have to wonder what kind of a rock Krispy Kreme's previous customers were under.

You want to root for Krispy Kreme to make a comeback, because really, we all like doughnuts. Sure they're not good for us, but neither is anything else that's truly fun in the world. Many of us secret doughnut lovers will be happy to put in some extra treadmill time if Krispy Kreme can come to grips with its deserters and continue to give us a standard glazed doughnut. Hang in there guys!