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The do gooders say we must ban anything that is bad! and industry replies, that we are taking away people's choices!
While I recognize that people should be free to make their own stupid decisions, whether smoking, eating sugar etc, but somehow I don't believe that the right to eat trans-fats is in the same category.
Most importantly, very few people really consciously make that choice. If I want to eat something greasy and fatty, yes that is my choice, but the decision to have that food high in trans-fats is not a choice anyone would make if they knew what they were doing.
The right to freely consume hydrogenated oils, is not about consumer choice, but industries right to substitute real foods with cheap imitations.
I say, that hydrogenated oils have never played a part in our food supply and never should, and given that better alternatives are out there, I see no reason for protecting the food industry's right to shortchange me with hydrogenated fats. |
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2 Comments
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Comment By: David Voss |
11:23AM 19/2/2007 |
I can vouch for the evils of industrial trans fats, from my experiences with Type 2 diabetes. It has now been about 4 years since I adopted a regime avoiding all forms of industrial trans fats and eating foods made with natural fats instead. Within 8 weeks I was able to stop the medication and have been off it ever since. Meanwhile, my cholesterol profile has gone form dangerous to excellent, I slimmed significantly (without dieting as such), my blood pressure has come back to a safe range (from dangerous) without need for medication and a lot of other improvments.
Meanwhile, it is clear to me that our government has neither the will nor the spine to stand up to industry and either regulate industrial trans fat content or require declaration on labels. Simply put, the downstream industry (health care, patient support, food processing and pharmaceuticals) have too much at stake to let that happen and. collectively, they pack a lot of taxpaying power. If any change is to be made, it must be from the consumers, through education. Please keep up the good work.
Incidently, your claims about the amounts of trans fat in processed foods run counter to the findings reported by ESR to the Food Safety Authority(Lake, D. R.; Saunders, D.; Jones, S. Level of Trans Fatty Acids in the New Zealand Food Supply. FW0622, Institute of Environmental Science & Research Limited: May 2006). According to ESR, there is almost no industrial trans fat in NZ-made foods, virtually all fast foods are fried in tallow and butter contains up to 9% trans fat. My own investigations prove otherwise. What is good for Denmark, Canada, the USA and (partly) Australia, isn't good enough for New Zealanders.
Here is another poser: what do we do about interestified fats? These are what is replacing transfat in the industrial food sector. They are manufactured from hydrogenated oils and have an similar effect on lipid cholesterol (raise LDL, lower HDL and raise LP(a)) as industrial trans fats but more significant for us diabetics is their effect on fasting glucose. Trans fats raise fasting glucose about 25% relative to an equivalent amount of dietary saturated fats but interestified fats raise it about 40%. Even if we get labelling of trans fats, there will be no mention of these new demons. Looks like the manufacturers are way ahead of the pack (again). (Sundram, K.; Karupaiah, T.; Hayes, K. Stearic acid-rich interestified fat and trans-rich fat raise the LDL/HDL ratio and plasma glucose relative to palm olein in humans. Nutrition and Metabolism 2007, 4, (3).) |
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Comment By: Gordon Rouse |
11:57AM 19/2/2007 |
Interesterified fats!
I must admit I was not aware that these had been implicated with health problems as yet. Even Dr Mary Enig in Know Your Fats, suggests that the stearic acid in fully hydrogenated oils is the same as stearic acid, however she did write that some 6 years ago!!
Found this information about them, for those like me who were unaware of this issue:
http://www.stop-trans-fat.com/interesterified-fat.html |
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Current Poll Results
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The milk I consume most is: |
Naturalea 4% unhomogenised (
13 %)
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Farmhouse (4%) unhomogenised (
5 %)
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Standard (3.3%) homogenised (
8 %)
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Low Fat Milk Homogenised (
33 %)
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Real Farm Milk - non pasteurised (
41 %)
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