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Those Sneaky Trans Fats - Now You See 'Em, Now You Don't!
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05/15/07
By Nurse Mark
Trans fats – despite the hype, they really
haven’t gone away…
We hear it almost daily – this food maker, that restaurant chain, even entire
cities claiming “No trans fats!” and “0 grams trans fats!” This really should be
reason to celebrate, given the toxic nature of trans fats, right? Yeah, right!
Perhaps the most important thing to note when reading the label claims for these
trans-fat-free foods is what they are claiming for a “serving size” – is it
something like a half-dozen potato chips, a tablespoon of salad dressing, or one
piece of fried food? C’mon folks, let’s get real – can you stop at 6 potato
chips? I know that I can’t, if I let myself get started… (Yes, I confess: I do
sometimes allow myself the sinful indulgence of some of these greasy, salty,
acrylamide-laden, trans-fat bombs… we’re all human, after all!)
Major Food Sources of Trans Fat for American Adults
(Average Daily Trans Fat Intake is 5.8 Grams or 2.6 Percent
of Calories)
40%
cakes, cookies, crackers, pies,
bread, etc.
21%
animal products
17%
margarine
8%
fried potatoes
5%
potato chips, corn chips,
popcorn
4%
household shortening
3%
salad dressing
1%
breakfast cereal
1%
candy
Data based on FDA’s economic analysis for the final trans fatty
acid labeling rule, "Trans Fatty Acids in Nutrition Labeling,
Nutrient Content Claims, and Health Claims" (July 11, 2003) |
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The reason that this is important has to do with the regulations that our mighty
FDA has set forth for food makers when it comes to trans fats. You
see, in the eyes of the FDA, anything less than 0.5 grams of trans fats per
serving is irrelevant and can be called zero!
Now, the measurement of 0.5 grams is a little hard for many of us to grasp. I
know it is for me, anyway, and I’m from Canada, where the metric system of
measures was “adopted” (some say it was more like “forced on them” – but that’s
another story…) many years ago. So I sat down and tried to find some frame of
reference that I could wrap my brain around and make some sense of.
First I thought, what are trans fats? They are simply fatty acids – oils – that
have been modified by the addition of hydrogen molecules, usually on purpose in
order to solidify liquid oil into margarine or shortening. Sometimes fats are
damaged by processing or heat, and can become trans too. This process is called
hydrogenation – it basically takes a less dense liquid oil and alters it so that
its molecules can “pack together” more tightly, hence becoming more solid.
OK, enough of the science – my eyes were beginning to glaze over just trying to
explain it. In practical terms, what I was after was some sort of understandable
reference to help me get a grok on just how much is a half a gram of fat – trans
or otherwise. So I got out my trusty Lyman electronic scale, which measures in
those esoteric gram units, and I measured some stuff. Like coconut oil, which is
a saturated fat, and similar in some ways to those trans fats in that it is
fairly solid at room temperature. It turns out that when coconut oil is fully
warm and liquid, a half a gram of it is just less than a quarter teaspoon full.
When it is cold and hard or solid, like margarine, it is about half that volume
– it “packs together” into about one-eighth of a teaspoon. Put another way, a
0.5 gram bit of solid fat, which is pretty much what trans fat is, is a chunk
about the size of my thumbnail – and I have big, “guy-size” fingers.
So, the bottom line here is that the FDA says that as long as someone doesn’t
put more than about an eighth of a teaspoonful of trans fats into a single
serving of a food then they get to make that coveted “Zero Grams of Trans Fat!”
claim. Wow! Seems to me there might be a little bit of “slack” in all this for
the food manufacturers…
Think about it: you’re a food manufacturer of, say potato chips – nice, greasy,
salty potato chips. You sell them by the “family size” bag, though you know that
one of those bags is about what the average American junk-food junkie will eat
in a single sitting. Your analysis comes back with the results that there is a
gram of trans fat in, say, thirty of your chips. Hmmm… Not looking good… But
wait! Here’s an idea: let’s call the “serving size” 15 chips. No, make it 12
chips, just to be safe. Now you get to put a big, exciting notice on your bag of
greasy chips: “0 Grams Trans-Fats!” and crow about how healthy they are! And
it’s all FDA approved!
Folks, maybe it’s time we held our food industry and our FDA – and yes, it is
our
FDA – to a little bit higher standard. Zero means zero. No means no. None means
none. It doesn’t mean “just a little bit”, or “maybe just a smidge” or “well,
not really enough to be bad for you, we think.”
I recall a 2002 report from a National Academy of Sciences panel that sought to
set a safe intake level for trans-fatty acids. That panel's conclusion was: "The
only safe intake of trans-fat is zero."
Sounds pretty straight-forward to me – how ‘bout you?
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