Trans Fats/Hydrogenated Oils--The Killer in Non-Organic Processed Foods

The Independent (UK)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=613394

The killer in your cupboard
They can cause heart attacks and diabetes, yet most of us know nothing about
them - let alone how to avoid them. Catherine Nixey lifts the lid on trans
fats

22 February 2005

Oh, for the days when fat was fat. Over the years, what we used to think of
as a single substance has fractured into a bewildering chemical confusion of
varieties: monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, saturated fats,
hydrogenated fats and now trans fats. Earlier this month, McDonald's paid
out $8.5m (£4.5m) to settle a law suit in San Fransisco over using trans
fats in its cooking. And health experts now warn that these "killer" fats
are the most dangerous foodstuffs we might consume. But what exactly are
they?

While trans fatty acids occur naturally in small quantities in dairy
products and the meat of ruminant animals, the ones that are causing alarm
are those created as a by-product of processing hydrogenated vegetable oils.
Trans fats are found in their highest quantities in processed foods that
contain large quantities of hydrogenated oils, such as ready-made cakes,
chips, pastries, pies, chocolates, sweets and ice cream.

"According to the experts, they are best avoided," says Tessa Russell, of
Which? magazine, which recently conducted an investigation into trans fats.
"The European Food Safety Authority has said that they may cause more damage
than saturated fats. Some think that as little as 1g a day will
significantly increase your risk of heart disease." Trans fats raise the
levels of "bad" (LDL) cholesterol in the blood, and lower the levels of
"good" (HDL) cholesterol, so increasing your risk of coronary heart disease.
They have also been linked to type-2 diabetes.

But trans fats almost never appear on labels - food manufacturers are not
obliged to say whether or not a food contains them, or in what quantities
they might occur. All that manufacturers are required to say is that a
product contains hydrogenated fat or oil. It is this opacity in labelling
that has led to them being called "stealth fats".

Given the dearth of available data, Which? decided to analyse a wide variety
of foods on sale in Britain to see whether and at what levels they contained
these "killer fats". "We were surprised at the quantities we found," says
Russell. "The UK recommendation is that you should eat no more than 4.4g of
trans fats a day if you are a woman, and 5.6g a day if you are a man. But a
regular KFC meal contained 4.4g of trans fats. A McDonald's nuggets and
fries meal contained 3g." Other offenders were Tesco Free From toffee fudge
shortbread (2.5g per portion), Saxby's fresh ready-rolled short pastry (2.5g
per portion) and Cadbury's Boost bars (1.2g per portion).

Russell is also quick to point out that the levels of trans fats that are
considered safe are "questionable" in any case. "The recommendations vary
from country to country," she says, pointing out that Denmark has already
banned oils and fats that contain more than tiny quantities of the fats.
"The World Health Organisation has recommended that we try to eliminate them
from our diet completely. We would like the British government to tell
manufacturers to stop using them."

However, the Government doesn't feel that there is anything much to worry
about. "We don't have any plans to ban trans fats in this country," says a
spokesperson from the Food Standards Agency, "partly because the consumption
of them is on the decline anyway. The UK recommendations are that trans
fatty acids should provide no more than two per cent of dietary energy. In
1986 the average was just that, but by 2000 it had gone down to 1.1 per
cent." For similar reasons, the FSA has no plans to make labelling of trans
fats compulsory.

But as Oliver Tickell, the founder of tfX, The Campaign Against Trans Fats
in Food, points out, this is only an average figure. "Within thatyou will
have certain people who are consuming very large amounts of trans fats
indeed. Generally, I think, [these will be] poor people eating a poor diet -
a diet rich in chips, pizzas and the cheaper kinds of junk food. They will
be getting very large doses of trans fats."

But trans fats continue to be used because they are extremely beneficial to
the food industry. The hydrogenated oils and fats they are found in are
cheap, give a good "crumbly" texture to pastry and - crucially - prolong the
shelf-life of the product. "If you make a nice simple pastry with butter, it
won't last more than four or five days," says Shane Osborn, the chef and
patron of the Michelin-starred restaurant Pied à Terre. "Make one with
margarine, and it might last for four or five weeks."

But while they might have a preservative effect on food, they do not have a
preservative effect on us: research conducted by the Harvard School of
Public Health concluded that: "by our most conservative estimate,
replacement of partially hydrogenated fat in the US diet with natural
unhydrogenated vegetable oils would prevent 30,000 premature coronary deaths
a year." And whatever benefits hydrogenated oils and their attendant trans
fats might have, it seems that taste is not one of them. "I never use them,"
says Osborn. "Pastries made with hydrogenated fats will always have an
insipid, even a manufactured flavour."

So how can you avoid trans fats? "You can take a guess that if the
ingredients list says 'hydrogenated' or 'partially hydrogenated fats' on the
label, then that product will contain trans fats," says Russell. Earlier
this year, the Co-op announced that it is going to start labelling products
that contain the fats. Waitrose, meanwhile, has embarked on a programme to
eliminate them from its own-brand products - although, says a Waitrose
spokeswoman, "it will probably take about three or four years before we can
absolutely say that we haven't got trans fats in our products."

One clear way to avoid trans fats is to buy organic food. "It is forbidden
to include hydrogenated fat in organic food," says Tickell. "And I don't
think that organic manufacturers would want to include it anyway: an
industrial process like hydrogenation goes so completely against the organic
ethic."

And despite the reluctance of the Government to act, campaigners, especially
the more litigious ones, are likely to ensure that trans fats become an
increasingly problematic ingredient for food companies. McDonald's is not
the only company to have come under scrutiny. Kraft Foods, the maker of Oreo
cookies, has also had a law suit brought against it. The controversy seems
unlikely to go away.

"Something that is essentially a poison is habitually included in tens of
thousands of processed foods," says Tickell. "Trans fats are one of the
major public health scandals of the 20th, and now the 21st century."

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: GET TRANS FATS OUT OF YOUR DIET

BAD: Tesco Free From toffee fudge shortbread (2.5g per portion)

BAD: Asda milk chocolate flavour caramel shortcakes (0.65g)

BAD: Cadbury's Boost bar (1.2g)

BAD: Chips fried in hydrogenated oils

BAD: Margarine

GOOD: McVitie's Go Ahead caramel crunch bars (<0.1g)

GOOD: Asda Custard Creams (<0.1g)

GOOD: McVitie's Taxi biscuits (<0.1g)

GOOD: Chips fried in animal fat

GOOD: Butter