Food industry braces for Obama trans fat ban
The FDA is expected to move toward eliminating an ingredient seen as a health risk.
By Helena Bottemiller Evich
| 5/16/15 6:15 AM EDT
The Obama administration is expected to all but ban trans fat in a final ruling that could drop as soon as next week, killing most uses of an ingredient that has been put in everything from frozen pizza to Reese’s Pieces but since deemed harmful to human health.
The agency may create some very limited exemptions, but the ruling could force food companies to cut trans fat use beyond the 85 percent reduction already achieved over the past decade — a key piece of the Obama administration’s broader agenda to nudge Americans toward a healthier diet.
The food industry believes low-levels of trans fats are safe. Industry leaders have banded together behind-the-scenes to craft a food additive petition that will ask FDA to allow some uses of partially hydrogenated oils, such as in the sprinkles on cupcakes, cookies and ice cream. The industry hasn’t shared details, but officials maintain the uses will represent “very limited amounts.”
For more than 60 years, partially hydrogenated oils have been used in food products under the status generally recognized as safe, which does not require FDA’s approval. But since the 1990s, reams of studies have linked trans fat consumption to cardiovascular disease, causing somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 premature deaths before the industry started phasing it out.
In late 2013 the Obama administration issued a tentative determination that partially hydrogenated oils are not generally recognized as safe. The move sent shock waves through the food industry, which has already brought down average consumption from more than 4 grams per day to about 1 gram per day — an exodus largely fueled by mandatory labeling imposed a decade ago. Scores of popular products, including Oreos and Cheetos, have quietly dropped partially hydrogenated oils over the years, but it remains an ingredient in many products, including Pop Secret microwave popcorn, Pillsbury Grands! Cinnamon Rolls and Sara Lee cheesecake, as well as some restaurant fryers and commercial bakery goods.
If FDA sticks to its guns in its final determination — and most in food policy circles assume it will — the agency will be taking a firm step toward pushing out more of the remaining uses of trans fat.
“This is a massive win for public health,” said Sam Kass, the former senior adviser for nutrition at the White House and executive director of Let’s Move!, noting that FDA has estimated removing trans fat could prevent 20,000 heart attacks and some 7,000 deaths.
“There are few targeted actions you can take in this space that have that kind of direct impact,” said Kass. He said he expects FDA will ultimately allow negligible uses of trans fat, because there’s no science that shows such levels are harmful.
The federal government’s crackdown on trans fat is an ironic twist for a substance that first came into favor in the 1950’s as a response to the perceived negative health issues linked to the use of saturated fats from animal products, like lard and butter. The oils, which are made “partially hydrogenated” by bubbling hydrogen molecules through liquid at high temperatures, become solid, giving food a better shelf life and texture.
Crisco and margarine became regular staples in American kitchens, though many of these products have now mostly phased out their use of partially hydrogenated oils.
Some naturally occurring trans fat can be found in meat and dairy, but the FDA is only going after so-called industrial or added partially hydrogenated oils, which have been shown to raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol.
Public health groups are likely to praise the FDA’s final decision on trans fat, but it also will pose significant technical and economic challenges for food companies large and small. When the agency decided to rid the food supply of the heart-clogging substance, officials probably weren’t thinking about the hundreds of minor and often highly-technical uses in products like sprinkles. Trans fat, it turns out, helps keep the decorative color on certain sprinkles from leeching onto frosting — preventing unsightly cupcakes and cookies.
Some food industry experts think health officials were genuinely surprised to learn about the breadth of minor uses, including sprinkles.
Partially hydrogenated oils also used in many other technical ways, including to keep baked goods from sticking to equipment and stabilize flavors, colors or salts, whether it’s the coating of an ice cream bar or a beverage.
The industry and FDA will have to grapple with these and other remaining uses in the coming months as the agency will ultimately have to decide what levels of trans fat are safe for consumers and thus what levels will be permitted in food products during the food additive petition review process.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/fda-trans-fat-ban-118003.html#ixzz3aPTNmdOm
