Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 4, 1 April 2016 — Are You a Good Food Detective? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Are You a Good Food Detective?

By Claire Ku'uleilani Hughes, Dr. PH„ R.D. Do you notice changes on food labels? A popular ingredient has nearly disappeared. The Food and Drug Administration recently banned use of artificial trans fats or partially-hydrogenated oils in food production. These fats have been in food products for 40 to 50 years, including in some breakfast bars, snack bars, pretzels, crackers, breads, kids' fruit snacks, graham crackers, whipped toppings, cereal and iee cream cones. Food producers like to use

trans fats because they are cheaper and lengthen the shelf life of products. In other words, foods don't heeome stale or develop off-llavors as quickly. So, why ban trans fats? Because trans fats are harmful. According to The Center for Science in the Puhlie Interest, a consumer advocacy group, trans fats are the most dangerous kind of fat. The Center reports that trans fats ean stiffen the arteries and increase the amount of cholesterol circulating in blood and thus increase the risk of heart disease. Additionally, in mid-1990, a study by the Harvard School of Puhlie Heahh estimated that trans fat caused 50,000 premature heart attack deaths in the United States annually. The FDA, more conservatively, estimates 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 heart disease deaths will be avoided as a result of the trans fat ban.

Removal of trans fats has already begun. However, they ean still be found in some popular food items like frostings, microwave popeom, packaged pies, frozen pizzas, margarine and coffee creamers. Trans fats must be listed on the "Nutrition Facts" food lahel, so it is easy to eheek any favorite foods. FDA warns, "even if the Nutrition Facts lahel reports lists 0 %, it might be wise to eheek the written list of ingredients for "partially-hydroge-nated oil." A quick recent eheek of supermarket shelves of a few foods from the list above found no trans fat listed in both the "Nutrition Facts" and "list of ingredients." The hnal deadline on trans fat is mid-June 2018. By then, all partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats) must be out of food. However, manufacturers may still petition the FDA to allow trans fats use in specific circumstances. Two large

soup manufacturers have already petitioned to eonhnue trans fat use in their products, arguing that consuming low-levels is as safe as consuming foods containing natu-rally-occurring trans fats. However, the naturally-occurring trans fats in

meats and dairy products differ slightly in ehemieal structure from artificial trans fats. Only medical and food scientists might have anticipated these harms. However, the Ameriean consumer continues to focus on"convenience"... consuming more and more and more ready-made foods, drinks, fast foods, and snack foods. We seem to trust that "industry foods" are made just like

our mothers made them. And, we have been fooled... often. This finding (and others like it) provides a solid and urgent argument for more home-cooking, from scratch. And, this is proof that not all change is positive. ■

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A good food detective always checks a products labels.