Hydrogenated Fat: The Heart of the Matter
As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists. ~Joan Gussow
Hydrogenated Fat is unsaturated fat which means it is thicker and solid unlike natural fats. Hydrogenation is the process by which a fat is made thicker, in short, hydrogenation means you add hydrogen to animal fats or vegetable oils to make them solid at room temperature and improve their stability. This process is used because for them manufacturer is it cheaper and prolongs the shelf life of the products. But this is a false economy! Gaining profits using a cheaper process that extending shelf life is undermined by the fact that these trans-fats (as they are commonly called) are actually highly dangerous to consumer health. The National Academy of Sciences advises that in terms of nutrition: ‘Trans fatty acids are not essential and provide no known benefit to human health.’
There has been an increasing rise in consumer understanding of the known health risks that hydrogenated fats pose. The best known health risks are a greater risk of heart disease and stroke also trans-fats that cannot be metabolised normally end up in the liver for biotransformation. If they cannot be metabolised, they are returned in the blood to fat cells for storage, possibly posing a risk of permanent obesity. There is also an increased risk of cancer from these fats. Trans-fats are clearly a cause for great consumer concern.
These trans-fats and oils are used in everyday household products, they can be found in cakes, pies, ice-cream, and readymade meals. In short: in many foods that are not fresh. The epitome of trans-fat-food is deep fried food found in chip-shops, kebab shops, throughout Britain. Many of these franchises are now making a move to change the fats they fry their food in. The pattern seems to be the fast we live in modern life the lower the quality of our food. Consumers are apt to buy ready-meals because it is easier and quicker than making a hearty fresh meal from scratch. This is absurd: we prefer bad food that is dangerous to our health because we are to lazy to actually want to provide our bodies with fresh health naturally grown alternatives, and worse of all, most of us aren’t even aware of it.
There has been a lengthy political process of balancing public health with private profit from the public sale of processed foods containing artificially hydrogenated oils and fats continues today. Some countries are considering a complete ban against artificial hydrogenation products in food. Other countries consumers are not as well informed and have yet to put pressure on companies to stop the use of trans-fats altogether and regulate their use.
There have been varying responses to the trans-fat scandal. Many products are still being sold with trans-fats in them and consumers are not being told and unlike many countries, British food manufacturers are allowed to use trans-fats in products and there is no requirement for them to be listed on labels. However, in October 2004, the Food Standards Agency has asked for better labelling in the UK. Some companies such as Nestle, Marks and Spencer’s and Waitrose have voluntarily removed or reduced trans-fats from their products. Two major supermarkets will be withdrawing trans-fats from their own-brand products: Sainsbury’s from January 2007 and Tesco by the end of 2006. Clearly there is momentum building behind this cause and consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the issues surrounding hydrogenated fat. Indeed consumers should continue to demand that trans-fats be heavily regulated if not entirely banned from our foods altogether.
In other countries the response has been similar. In May 2003, BanTransFat.com Inc, a U.S. non-profit organisation, filed a lawsuit against the food manufacturer Kraft foods in an attempt to force Kraft to remove trans-fats from the Oreo cookie. The lawsuit was withdrawn when Kraft agreed to work on ways to find a substitute for trans-fat in the Oreo. This suit was very effective at bringing the trans-fat controversy to public attention. The new labelling rule took effect in January 1. 2006. While the regulation was strictly a labelling instruction, many food manufacturers used the 2006 deadline as a target date to reduce or eliminate trans-fat from their products. Denmark became the first country to introduce laws strictly regulating the sale of foods containing trans-fats in March 2003, a move which effectively bans partially hydrogenated oils.
All this evidence demonstrates that if you can bring wider public attention to an important consumer issue you can have an impact on industries and industrial processes across the globe. The movement away from trans-fats has been impressive but there is still work to be done. But work can be done the consuming public can be informed and educated and subsequent changes can be put in place. If only it could have happened sooner and quicker. If only it hadn’t taken people so long to find out perhaps our food would not have been of such poor fat quality for such a long and detrimental time.