Good riddance, trans.Trans fat, which causes tens of thousands of deaths every year, is finally disappearing from the food supply. It hasn't been easy to reach that milestone. Back in the 1980s, it was unclear if trans fat, which is found in partially hydrogenated oil, was harmful. That changed when two Dutch researchers discovered that trans fat raises levels of LDL LDL - ["LDL: A Logic-Based Data-Language", S. Tsur et al, Proc VLDB 1986, Kyoto Japan, Aug 1986, pp.33-41]. ("bad") cholesterol in our blood and lowers levels of HDL (Hardware Description Language) A language used to describe the functions of an electronic circuit for documentation, simulation or logic synthesis (or all three). Although many proprietary HDLs have been developed, Verilog and VHDL are the major standards. ("good") cholesterol. In 1993, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (the nonprofit publisher of Nutrition Action) took its first shot at the nasty fat when we asked the Food and Drug Administration to require companies to list trans fat on Nutrition Facts labels, which were then first appearing on foods. As the evidence for trans fat's harmfulness mounted, CSPI CSPI Center for Science in the Public Interest CSPI Corporate Service Price Index CSPI Cumulative Schedule Performance Index asked for increasingly stronger measures. Meanwhile, Walter Willett, the chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard School of Public Health is (colloquially, HSPH) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, next to Harvard Medical School and Cambridge, Massachusetts, , took a lead role in the War Against Trans Fat. He led epidemiological studies indicating that trans has been causing about 50,000 deaths a year in the United States. Those studies also suggested that trans fat does more harm than raise "bad" and lower "good" cholesterol. And, unlike other academics, Willett used the news media to campaign against trans fat. In 2003, the FDA FDA abbr. Food and Drug Administration FDA, n.pr See Food and Drug Administration. FDA, n.pr the abbreviation for the Food and Drug Administration. took a crucial step by requiring Nutrition Facts labels to list trans fat. That told the industry in no uncertain terms that trans was a real problem. The next year, an FDA advisory committee informed the agency that, gram for gram, trans fat is even more harmful than the saturated fat saturated fat, any solid fat that is an ester of glycerol and a saturated fatty acid. The molecules of a saturated fat have only single bonds between carbon atoms; if double bonds are present in the fatty acid portion of the molecule, the fat is said to be that's in meat and dairy foods. Labeling has led many prominent companies to get rid of most or all of the trans fat from their foods. They don't want their products criticized for being high in trans. Frito-Lay, Kraft, ConAgra, and others are dumping trans and generally using much healthier oils, especially in their fried foods. Unfortunately, Pillsbury, General Mills, Marie Callender's, and others haven't done much to break their trans habit (see p. 10). As for restaurants: it took a few years for them to begin tackling trans, but there's tremendous change now. Chili's, Ruby Tuesday, Wendy's, KFC KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken (restaurant chain) KFC Kenya Flower Council KFC Kitchen Fresh Chicken (Kentucky Fried Chicken motto) KFC Kung Fu Cult (Cinema) KFC Kitchen Fixed Charge , Taco Bell, Arby's, and many others have largely eliminated--or plan to soon do so--trans fat, at least from their fryers. (It's trickier to fix baked goods.) McDonald's, by far the biggest chain, has switched to healthier oils in over 1,000 restaurants so far. It has already eliminated trans from its outlets in much of Europe, Australia, and some other countries. New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of City's health department has played a catalytic role by banning almost all trans fat from restaurants. Philadelphia has done the same, and many other cities and states are now considering bills to protect their citizens' arteries. One barrier to switching oils is the limited supply of alternatives. Fortunately, the sharp increase in demand for trans-free oils has spurred farmers and processors to ramp up Ramp Up To increase a company's operations in anticipation of increased demand. Notes: A company might 'ramp up' operations if they just signed a contract creating substantially more demand for their product. See also: Demand, Economies of Scale production of canola, high-oleic canola, sunflower, and low-linolenic soybean oil. Although the industry is making great progress, the FDA needs to take the two critical steps that would finish the job of protecting the public: * Require restaurants immediately to put notices on menus and menu boards if their foods contain trans fat. * Revoke the "generally recognized as safe Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) is a United States of America Food and Drug Administration (FDA) designation that a chemical or substance added to food is considered safe by experts, and so is exempted from the usual Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) food " status of partially hydrogenated oil. It's ridiculous for the FDA to call that oil safe when the agency agrees that trans fat causes heart disease. The time has come to get partially hydrogenated oils--and their trans fat--out of our food supply. Michael F. Jacobson Michael F. Jacobson, who holds a Ph.D. in microbiology, co-founded the Center for Science in the Public Interest in 1971, along with two fellow scientists he met while working at the Center for the Study of Responsive Law. , Ph.D. Executive Director Center for Science in the Public Interest |
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