|
|||||||||||
 |
Fall 2007
Food and Drug Administration aims to cut the “trans” fats from America’s dietThe New food labeling requirements will help to raise consumer awareness, which may help to lower the risk of heart disease.Lehigh Valley, Pa. (January 2006) - If you don’t know what trans fats are, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to make sure that you will soon, with the new food labeling requirements that went into effect this month.“Most people watch out for the saturated and unsaturated fats, but very few people know about trans-fats,” says Jennifer Netzel, a registered dietitian with Lehigh Valley Hospital (LVH). “The majority of trans fatty acids form when liquid vegetable oils go through a process called hydrogenation, which turns the vegetable oil into a solid. These hydrogenated vegetable oils are mainly used to extend the shelf life of most junk foods like chips, cookies and bakery items,” Netzel says. Once considered a healthier alternative to lard or butter, hydrogenated vegetable oils have been shown to raise your LDL cholesterol (the bad one), and lower your HDL cholesterol (the good one). “The arteries in our bodies may become hardened if a person has high levels of LDL and low levels of HDL cholesterol,” says Netzel. “This in turn increases the risks of heart disease.” Netzel says the new food labeling requirements are designed to help raise consumer consciousness. “It’s also about making Americans more aware of healthy eating habits.” But not all vegetable oils are created equally. “Consumers should stay away from tropical oils like coconut and palm oil. But they should use more olive and canola oil in their cooking, because these oils contain mostly monounsaturated fat, the healthiest fat.” Netzel also warns consumers to be aware that even if the nutrition facts panel does not list trans-fats, they should be on the look-out for ingredients such as hydrogenated vegetable oils. “If any of the ingredients include the word hydrogenated then it still may have less than half a gram of trans-fats.” As well as the requirements to label the foods that have trans-fats, the FDA also made it a requirement for food labels to state, in plain language, if the product contains the eight most common allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shell fish, wheat, tree nuts, soybeans and peanuts. This page last updated 2/19/08 09:51 PM
ARTICLE TOOLS:
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
||||||
