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Does Less Trans Fat Make Food Healthier?
by Lauran Neergaard
The Associated Press
Published by The Washington Post
April 16, 2007
WASHINGTON -- A major change in the national diet is under way:
Heart-damaging trans fat is rapidly disappearing from grocery aisles and
restaurant food, too. But are its replacements really healthier?
It's a tricky time for consumers, because the answer depends on the food _
and some are losing trans fat only to have another artery clogger take its
place, that old nemesis saturated fat.
"Right now the public has to be very careful ... if something says 'trans
fat-free,' what else is in it?" warns Dr. Robert Eckel, past president of the
American Heart Association.
Trans fat has become the new fall guy for bad nutrition. Chain restaurants
are struggling to get it off the menu after New York City and Philadelphia
required restaurants to phase it out by next year. Bills to restrict or ban
trans fat in restaurants or school cafeterias have been introduced in at least
20 states.
At grocery stores, the government began forcing food labels to disclose the
amount of trans fat in packaged foods last year, and the race was on to see
which manufacturers could eliminate it first.
The irony: Americans eat about five times more saturated fat than trans fat.
And while gram-for-gram, trans fat is considered somewhat more harmful than its
cousin, too much of either greatly increases the risk of heart disease, stroke,
diabetes and other ailments.
Trans fat is created when companies add hydrogen to liquid cooking oils to
harden them for baking or for a longer shelf-life, turning them into "partially
hydrogenated oils."
There is no single substitute. So food chemists and chefs are taste-testing
their way through different cooking oils and fats _ both naturally occurring
ones and chemically modified ones _ to find replacements that don't alter each
food's taste or texture.
What are the options? There are some heart-healthier oils, called
monounsaturated and polyunsaturated oils _ such as olive, canola or soybean
oils. Unlike trans and sat fats, these liquid oils don't raise levels of
so-called bad cholesterol, or LDL cholesterol.
Frying chicken in canola or soybean oil instead of partially hydrogenated
shortening is an easy switch.
But you can't make, say, a pie crust with olive oil. Industry is finding that
the toughest foods to rid of trans fat are baked goods, such as pastries,
cookies, pizza crusts.
Substituting animal fats, such as butter or lard, or tropical oils such as
palm or coconut oil may keep the taste, but they are super-high in saturated
fat.
"You need to find a replacement for a solid fat that doesn't have the health
implications, and that's the tougher battle," says Susan Borra of the
International Food Information Council. "We are changing the entire fatty acid
profile of the food supply, and we're not sure we know what it's going to look
like at the other end."
And that's where the concern comes in. Merely substituting saturated fat for
the trans doesn't give the food more bad fat altogether than before, but it
doesn't make it a healthy choice either, Eckel explains.
So the heart association is beginning a major campaign to teach consumers
about the different fats and how to tell what foods they're in. (It's partly
funded by a 2005 court settlement in which McDonald's was accused of being too
slow to remove trans fat.)
How much fat is too much? Federal guidelines say between 25 percent and 35
percent of total daily calories should come from fats, but the bad fats should
make up only a fraction of that. The heart association says less than 7 percent
of total calories should be saturated fat - the average American gets about 11
percent now. Trans fat should be less than 1 percent of calories, half today's
average.
A centerpiece of the heart campaign is a Web-based calculator at http://www.americanheart.org/facethefats so
consumers don't have to do that math. It tallies just how many grams of fat
people of different ages and exercise habits can fit into a day, with lists of
foods that fit the bill.
For some people, a single meal of a cheeseburger and small fries would just
exceed the daily limit of bad fats. Others who are taller and more active could
fit in two burgers and be OK.
Many companies are searching for trans fat alternatives that are healthier
than saturated fats, Borra stresses. Indeed, the heart association brought
together food makers, food chemists and health experts to explore all the
options last fall, and among those generating interest are different ways to
blend liquid and harder fats, in hopes of reducing the artery-clogging
portions.
For now, reading the food label - the Nutrition Facts panel on the back of
the package, not just the "trans-free" icon on the front - is key, says Michael
Jacobson of the consumer advocacy Center for Science in the Public Interest.
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