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FDA Announces Eliminating Trans Fats By 2018 in USA
As per reports FDA Orders Food Manufacturers in USA To Stop Using Trans Fats By 2018
As per estimates there are around 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths from heart disease every year in USA that would be prevented by banning trans fats. In view of this the FDA has announced that food manufacturers will have three years to eliminate all trans fats from products by 2018.
FDA expects the labels to reflect 0g trans fat as shown in the sample lable on left side.
Although putting the action into effect will cost roughly billions of dollars, the ruling will save approximately twenty times more in health care and other costs over the course of two decades.
Bakery products are one of the major source of trans fats. However, despite growing awareness of its dangers, trans fats are still present in many products. Although the food industry is pleased to have a three-year window to carry out the removal, it plans to seek permission to continue using small amounts of trans fats in specific products, as their complete removal poses some major challenges.
The FDA ruling states that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the source of trans fats, are no longer considered generally recognized as safe (GRAS). If food producers wish to continue using PHOs, they will need to prove that the oils are safe for consumption. PHOs have been used in many food processing applications due to the fact that they are not only cheaper than saturated animal fats, such as butter, but they were in the past believed to be healthier as well. The popularity of these oils grew through their use in fried and baked goods, but research eventually revealed that they raised levels of bad cholesterol while lowering levels of good cholesterol.
Awareness about the dangers of PHOs led the FDA to ask companies to list trans fat content on nutrition labels. This reduced the consumption of trans fats by 78 percent between 2003 and 2012.
Even with this new ruling, trans fats will not be entirely eliminated from the food supply, as they occur naturally in meat and dairy products. Trace amounts are also used in some oils during the manufacturing process.
