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FDA Bans Trans Fat
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finally come to a conclusion about artificial trans fat: it must be removed from the U.S. food supply over the next three years. According to their final determination (PDF), there's no longer a scientific consensus that partially hydrogenated oils are safe to consume. Trans fat must be gone from food in the U.S. by June, 2018, unless a petitioner is granted specific approval by the FDA to continue using it. "Many baked goods such as pie crusts and biscuits as well as canned frosting still use partially hydrogenated oils because they help baked goods maintain their flakiness and frostings be spreadable. As for frying, palm oil is expected to be a go-to alternative, while modified soybean oil may catch on as well." The food industry is expected to spend $6.2 billion over the next two decades to formulate replacements, but the money saved from health benefits is expected to be more than 20 times higher.
One could argue HFCS is worse than transfat and it is used everywhere. Come on, get on a roll, FDA!
Trans fats are an unwanted biproduct of hydrogenation, and are a fat which humans do not have an enzyme to easily break down. This should directly reduce this incidence of heart disease, and is good news for everyone except cost-cutting food producers.
I doubt the Oil Partial Hydrogenators Union has the same pull on capital hill as the Corn Growers Association.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Oh well, the FDA can't do anything about the rainforests.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
go buy some. I'm sure the chinese would be happy to sell it to you.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The agricultural lobby is very powerful in the US. Very powerful indeed. They are not easily crossed.
If you can find it or make it yourself, go ahead and eat it.
This just means you can't get FDA approval for a recipe if you use trans fats in it. And without FDA approval you cannot sell the resulting food in a store.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
There is no reason to want to consume trans-fat. It holds roughly the same taste and texture as saturated fats, but cannot be broken down easily by the body, remaining in the blood stream for quite a long time.
If you want healthier but less tasty and more runny fats, eat unsaturated fats (vegetable oils) - if you want less healthy but more tasty, thick fats, eat saturated fats (animal fats). If you want to try and save money by trying to morph unsaturated fats into saturated fats and wind up with something that will kill you, eat trans-fats.
Ever notice how many reforms are actually reversals of previous reforms? Trans fats got a huge boost in the '70s and '80s because the reformers were convinced that saturated fat was very bad for you. Margarine was supposed to be more healthy than butter. So manufacturers ditched saturated fats and went for trans fats.
Similarly, now people want to ban animal testing, which established at the insistence of the reformers of a century ago. HMOs were a healthcare reform of the '70s, and are now reviled. People now complain about mandatory minimum sentencing, which was a '70s reform meant to end the problem of wildly disparate sentences.
And so the cycle goes....
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
I own a chocolate company. We make high quality chocolate from cocoa beans that we import directly from the farmers. When I fly over Central and South America, I almost tear up when I see the total devastation caused by Palm Oil. From 30,000 feet, there are times that as far as you can see it is mostly palm oil plantations -- especially over the Yucatan Peninsula. The thing to keep in mind is that unlike many crops, palm oil plantations allow for very little undergrowth and general bio diversity mixed in. (Cocoa often will have other crops mixed in as well as larger "mother trees" of various species shading the cocoa. There is also typically quite a bit of wildlife living in and around the cocoa plantations.) Yes, I've walked in and around palm oil plantations. They are strangely beautiful in the same sense that the European forests with trees all in rows are beautiful. Even so, palm oil plantations wreck total devastation on the local fauna and as much as banning trans fats may help our general health, banning trans fats will certainly destroy the rain forests in and around the equatorial belt.
What about good old lard and butter? It used to work just fine on pie crusts. Lard works great for frying my egg. It conveniently comes from the bacon I'm frying up at the same time.
I see you still haven't bothered to learn the definition of "socialism".
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
If the measurement threshold is large enough than it can be like those fat free butter sprays that are made from oil and water. When you can say trans fat free as long as it has less than a gram of it why bother changing it when they're mostly milligram doses anyway? Oh and from the fine article it appears the real reason is that Monsanto genetically engineered Soybeans to naturally produce trans fats. So they can use them but not have to claim them.
Cigarettes are already free of trans fat.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
If you can legalize Marijuana why should a big drink or a Croissant be illegal ?
Because the weed won't kill you or cost society a fortune in hospitalization fees, whereas the "big drink" and the "croissants" will.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm not a fan of banning them either. However, given the rate of obesity and type 2 diabetes in this country with strong evidence they are caused by our increased consumption of various kinds of sugar ("real" sugar and HFCS), I would be very much in favor of a relatively high tax on them.
The reason they're used in processed foods is because they are an effective and cheap flavor enhancer. Tax them and they become less economically viable in cheap bulk processed foods. Consumption would naturally go down as alternatives were substituted. And for the people that still consume it in quantity, the tax revenue can be funneled into taking care of the health problems caused by over consumption. Win win.
This is a bit of a silly reduction ad absurdum. The problem with trans fats is that they are cheap and satisfying, and so they wind up in lots and lots of foods people eat, to the point that it's hard to find foods of that type that don't contain them, and you really have to care to find the difference. What this typically looks like is that poor people get foods that are high in trans fats, and well-off people get foods that are not, because poor people shop at price chopper, if they are lucky enough to have one they can get to, and well-off people shop at Whole Foods. And you see this very clearly when you look at health outcomes.
So it's not analogous to tobacco smoke, where the person consuming it has a choice. It's not analogous to chewing tobacco. It is related to fast food, because that's where you find the trans fats, but this actually makes choosing fast food healthier for you.
The point is that whether we make people who make risky health choices pay more or not, this actually eliminates a totally unnecessary health risk that nobody would choose to take on if they had a choice. And that can have a really serious effect on costs down the road, so it's economically a really smart thing to be doing, since health care costs are so high right now. But since it's a choice that can't be made at the point of purchase of the health care, it has to be done some other way, and this is a good way to do it.
tax those things, like cigarettes. i would have been fine with taxing trans fats. but banning them is ok only because there are suitable replacements
the immature understanding of freedom is "i can do whatever i want, damn the consequences"
the mature understanding of freedom is "i can do whatever i want as long as i don't impinge on the freedom of others"
and if your behavior costs me with higher taxes and healthcare premiums for your care, then i have a say in you doing those things, and sending you a bill to help pay for the inevitable higher costs you are causing to me
you really can do whatever you want in life. but if what you do costs others, you are going to be sent a bill
avoiding that bill shows you to be an ignorant freeloader, not a freedom loving person
and this really has nothing to do with big bad evil authoritarian government come to destroy your freedom just for fun and laughs
it's about the natural limitations on your freedoms: the freedoms of others
absolutely. and you're not? you're ok with doing things that cost others without their consent?
that doesn't make you freedom loving. that makes you a thieving freeloader
i'm going to move in next to you and blast loud music at 3 AM. i'm going to jeopardize your life by racing by you in the highway at 95 mph. i'm going to buy a dog and keep hi unchained and let him get in your yard to crap and dig holes. you're telling me that's ok, because your immature "understanding" of freedom apparently means i can do whatever the fuck i want, who gives a fuck if my choices harm or cost others. right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In the past few years, I don't recall coming across a single product that had any trans fat.
FDA had mandatory labeling for transfats, which contained a loophole. You could put a label stating "0g transfat" if your product contains less than 0.5g of transfat per serving. If you define your serving size as 1g than your product can be made of nearly 50% transfats. Many bakery products, particularly the ones with long shelf life do contain transfats and can be labeled as "0g transfat". That's why some manufacturers use a label "No transfats" to indicate that there are indeed no transfats in their product.
FDA has decided a lot of things, many of which turned out not to be true. According to the FDA, Walnuts are a drug (yes it is true).
No it's not true. The FDA forced a walnut distributor to remove some unsubstantiated health claims from the packaging of their products: http://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/ucm202825.htm. People making false claims about the health benefits of their products (e.g. selling grain alcohol mixed with an emetic as cure-all) was the whole reason the FDA was created.
Walnuts are not classified as a drug, but if you claim they cure cancer without a good double blind study to back you up, you will be called on your bullshit. This is a good thing and is an example of a government agency exercising it's regulatory authority within the appropriate ambit. There are plenty of other real government conspiracies both covert and flagrant to worry about without inventing more.
There, fixed that for you... your original looked very odd to those of us old enough remember when the agricultural lobby was the farm lobby.
trans fats we've known for nearly 10 years are killing us but its not enough. the industry has sat on no brainers for too long and shuffled their lobbyists to the tune of profit. Among others that could be and should be banned:
High Fructose Corn Syrup has turned us into a nation too fat for everything from coffins to military service. numerous studies concur this isnt sugar.
Palm Oil most foods with this ingredient either dont need it, or source it out of a 40 year old legacy habit from colonial dominionism of US trade. the WHO has declared it an abomination, and its destroying rainforest at an alarming rate.
Cigarettes full stop. this shouldnt even be a fucking debate.
Margerine. this is a culinary abortion with as much or more cardiovascular destructiveness as the butter it so readily supplanted in the 70s. ban this sick filth and lets work on diets that contain respectable, conservative amounts of solid fats when needed.
among other things we could cut down on are processed foods in general. its an industry that scams billions out of americans who are manipulated into willfully and ignorantly assuming boiling water and dispensing corn+soy+sodium from a cardboard box is cooking. Jamie oliver was right. Children should be taught at minimum 25 recipes they can use in life for healthy meals and the recipes should then be a required component of graduation.
Good people go to bed earlier.
So I can sell you sugar laced with arsenic? I can sell you rat labeled as chicken? Get real. You're very happy with the people telling your stores what they can and cannot sell you as long as it's some perceived benefit rather than some perceived slight.
Why in the world you would consider this a limit on your personal freedom I have no idea but we all have our crosses to bear. This may be one of yours, I guess. What exactly do you have a problem with in this decision? The lack of consensus in research or some concern you have over what the replacements will be (and their impacts) or just bitching for the sake of bitching?
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Then you should also sign a card saying you are not entitled to medical care to treat potential illnesses caused that have direct links to the digestion of trans fats, unless you pay for it yourself.
Well, okay. Then YOU should sign a card saying you are not entitled to medical care to treat illnesses after you live past the average life expectancy of the general population, unless you pay for it yourself.
I'm all for "it's my body" and all that, I honestly am, but not at the expense of others.
Then pay up if you live long! Seriously.
This is generally the problem with people who make these arguments. There are lots of studies that show that medical costs associated with "unhealthy behaviors" also tend to result in EARLIER DEATH. Meanwhile, there are plenty of studies that show that total medical costs increase significantly with age.
Which means that the greatest cost to society is generally due to the "healthy" people who live to 95 and have to have multiple joint replacements, break hips here and there, have chronic degenerative illnesses that might take 10 or 20 years to kill someone, have a few rounds of minor cancer treatments over the years, and require many years of round-the-clock care after their minds succumb to dementia until they finally die.
Meanwhile, that poor fat guy who ate terribly cost a hell of a lot in diabetes treatment in his 50s, but then he was nice enough to save money for society by having a heart attack and dying at age 62, right after his retirement party.
In sum, when you actually take into account the extra medical expenses caused by LIVING LONGER, it's usually enough to make "healthy" people more expensive over a lifespan compared to people with "unhealthy" behaviors. (This goes for smoking, obesity, etc.)
So, if you're talking about annual premiums for insurance, sure -- I'm with you: make people who eat trans fats pay more if it's actually going to increase short-term medical expenses.
But if you're looking at overall societal costs for people over their lives, be prepared to pony up when you end up living longer and costing more for your "healthy" lifestyle.
(P.S. I don't use trans fats and haven't really used them much ever in my cooking. I don't give a crap if they disappear from processed foods, because I generally avoid them. But this has no bearing on whether your argument is wrong.)
Ayn Rand herself spent her final years on government assistance, taking Medicare and Social Security.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Go learn. You need to know what HFCS actually is before you can have my attention while you spout off about it.
It's sugar. Specifically, it's corn molasses distilled to remove moisture volume.
No.
HFCS is corn syrup that is processed with an enzyme that converts the glucose in the corn syrup into fructose. Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in most fruits and vegetables. The problem with HFCS is right there in the name: HIGH FRUCTOSE corn syrup. HFCS is highly concentrated sugar, which means you are getting far more than you would with an equivalent amount of another sweetener.
Although many people don't think about lard in baked goods (other than maybe biscuits), it works quite well there. Oreos was made with lard until sometime in the '90s when the replaced it with -- wait for it -- partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. It looks like we've come full circle. (Yes, I know oreos aren't exactly the greatest baked good, but it can work elsewhere too.)
That said, you only listed tallow and lard. Don't forget about butter and rendered chicken fat (schmaltz), which is really good stuff (and is often a byproduct of cooking chicken).
On an unrelated note, Wisconsin is ahead of the curve on regulating trans fats courtesy of the butter lobby:
97.18 (4) The serving of colored oleomargarine or margarine at a public eating place as a substitute for table butter is prohibited unless it is ordered by the customer.
97.18 (5) The serving of oleomargarine or margarine to students, patients or inmates of any state institutions as a substitute for table butter is prohibited...
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.g...
Hell, it was illegal to sell margarine here for many years.
What has transfat in it that you want?
First, it's important to note that foods can be sold as "trans-fat free" even if they contain 0.49 grams of trans fat per serving, because they're allowed to round off to the nearest gram. You need to check the ingredients list for the word "hydrogenated" to know for certain - if there are no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, then it will not have any trans fat.
Just about anything that's deep fried commercially, either prepackaged or restaurants. There are exceptions, of course, but it's commonly used in commercial cooking because trans fats resist going rancid (bacteria and mold have just as much difficulty metabolizing it as your body does) - it lasts longer and is therefore cheaper.
Since trans fats are semisolid at room temperature, they are often found in vegetable-based spreadable fats. Margarine is basically pure trans fat. Shortening and frosting (spreadable fat mixed with sugar and color) are also likely to contain it, if not be entirely made from it. naturally, anything made with shortening like pastry crusts will have trans fat in it as a result.
Non-dairy creamers can contain trace amounts. Microwave popcorn is possible because the kernels are in a solid lump of trans fat that melts when heated. Milkshakes and the like can have quite a lot of it.
Any kind of commercially produced baked good - again, trans fat resists going rancid so it helps the shelf life. Cookies, cakes, crackers, etc.
So yeah, unless you're a strict vegan who only eats stuff from your own farm for "decades", you've almost certainly eaten something with added trans fats.
=Smidge=
It's not. it's what, 55% fructose, 45% sucrose -- whereas table sugar is a 50/50 split?
Where did you get the idea that you can take a food, completely ignore the body's metabolism, list its component molecules, and declare parity? It's a complete stretch, and so it's completely wrong. This is 1982-era reasoning.
The major problem is the rate-limiting factors of liver enzymes. The liver can handle a little bit of fructose at a time. If it gets overrun, it quickly manufactures triglycerides with the excess fructose, and those run right out and stick to the arterial walls (I know, triglycerides don't like to be anthropomorphized).
Sucrose metabolism is almost entirely rate-limited by the amount of available sucrase enzyme in the small intestine (the stomach acid affects 10% of the amount consumed). This provides a slow-sip of fructose to the liver, so it's much more manageable. This built-in protection is defeated by using HFCS or any unbound glucose/fructose syrup - the liver gets it nearly all at once. Keep that up and you'll be fat and get heart disease.
It's still possible to overload the liver with excess amounts of sucrose - you have more sucrase than liver enzymes, so anything more than a taste of sugar is still going to be a problem. This works out OK if you're going to be starving all winter, but in modern Western societies that starvation never happens, so the weight keeps piling on.
Even if you don't understand the biochemistry, the two basic rules still work well - don't buy stuff in the middle of the grocery store and don't eat anything your Grandmother wouldn't recognize as food from her childhood. Hrm, we might need to up that to "Great Grandmother" these days; if the ingredients label lists a chemical shitstorm straight out of Post-WWII "better living through chemistry - try the transfats!" insanity, don't eat it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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