Your plate is laden with bad trans fats! Food Manufacturers to admit it now in a mandatory labeling bid

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMar 29 2010

Trans fats are that part of your diet that can cause heart disease, diabetes, stroke, high cholesterol and are related to at least 6,000 Australian deaths each year. These fats are essentially liquid fats converted to solids by hydrogenation and thus also called hydrogenated fats.

These are commonly used in recipes for confectionaries, deep fried and other fat rich foods. They are chosen over other good fats because they keep longer and makes food crispy.

Food manufacturers turn a deaf ear to all warnings and continue to use these fats without appropriate labeling of food items.

In the US food manufacturers are compelled to label all foods regarding the amount of trans fats used. These fats have been banned in Denmark and Switzerland.

In a new development, a national forum is set up on March 29^th 2010 in Sydney to investigate necessary labeling of foods at the Review of Food Labelling and Policy, a high-powered panel appointed by the Council of Australian Governments and the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council.

The next step according to experts is a move towards ban of these trans fats in diet. Under current Australian rules, processed foods containing trans fats are rarely identified. Plans are underway to conduct a symposium in June to be attended by doctors, researchers and representatives to deal with this issue.

Independent nutritionist Rosemary Stanton, who will attend today's review, said compulsory labelling would encourage manufacturers to re-formulate products to enable them to be marketed as "trans fat free". "Trans fats are one of the most harmful things in our diet," she said. "But how can people avoid trans fats if they aren't labelled?" Dr. Stanton went on to say that government regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand has made false claims that trans-fat levels in Australia are low.

"Some foods, such as chicken nuggets, popcorn, croissants, crackers and cheese, are quite high in trans fats, so you could end up with quite a high level in your diet," she said.