Trans Fat Required on Food Labels

We have so many Americans - 500,000 - that are suffering each year from heart disease and heart defects and a lot of that is attributable to trans fatty acids," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson says of trans fat, a cousin of saturated fat.

Trans fat is a big part of the reason foods like doughnuts and fried chicken taste so good. It's at least as dangerous to the body as saturated fat and some experts consider it even worse. Until now, consumers have had no way of knowing how much trans fat is in the foods they eat.

"Our choices about our diets are choices about our health, and those choices should be based on the best available scientific information," said FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan. "This label change means trans fat can no longer lurk, hidden, in our food choices."

New Food and Drug Administration regulations will require nutrition labels to include a new line listing the amount of trans fat in each food right under the amount of saturated fat. Consumers should add the amount of trans fat and saturated fat together to learn the total of heart-risky fats in each serving.

"It's a good first step," said Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which petitioned the FDA in 1993 to create the regulations. "People will be able to compare different products and determine which ones are worse for their hearts."

However, Wootan contends that the FDA didn't go far enough: The new labels won't tell consumers how much each food item counts against their daily allotment of total unhealthy fat. Nor will the label bear an FDA warning-that trans fat consumption should be as low as possible.

The FDA promised more research to find ways to educate consumers about heart-damaging fats.

According to the FDA, revealing the trans fat content on labels could save between 2,000 and 5,600 lives a years, as people would choose healthier foods or manufacturers would change their recipes to reduce trans fat.

The government is allowing until 2006 for companies to make the change to their labels.

Some companies are already supporting the decision by taking action now. Frito-Lay has announced it is eliminating trans fat from its popular Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos, and became the first manufacturer to voluntarily add trans fat content to food labels.

"Clearly this is going to be a major change to food labels, and it's going to help consumers who are seeking information about trans fat content of foods to find it," said Tim Willard of the National Food Processors Association.

Saturated fat is found primarily in meat and other products containing animal fat. People are advised to eat no more than 20 grams a day. Both saturated fat and trans fat can increase the risk of heart disease.

Trans fat is in numerous products, like meats, dairy products and pastries. The most common source of trans fat is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Currently, the only way to tell if a food has trans fat is by the word "hydrogenated."

The National Academy of Sciences, which sets nutrition levels, ruled that eating while eating some trans fat may be unavoidable, there is no safe level it could set as an upper limit.

Source: CNN

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