The Truth About Trans Fats :Coming to a Label Near You
Consumers will soon get a much clearer idea of just how bad that glazed doughnut -- and even that little wheat cracker -- is for their health.
In the biggest regulatory change for the food industry in a decade, the federal government issued a long-awaited rule requiring food makers to list the amount of harmful, artery-clogging fats known as "trans fats " on their product labels.
Though trans fats are found naturally in meats and some dairy products, Americans ingest far greater amounts of them from munching cookies, chips and other snack foods -- including some that are labeled as "low fat."
Nearly all fried and baked goods have some trans fats , and nutritionists believe they are so noxious that no level is entirely safe. Not only do trans fats raise so-called bad cholesterol, but they also lower good cholesterol, the stuff that reduces risk of clogged arteries.
The new requirement, issued by the Food and Drug Administration, will force food companies to add a line to nutrition labels showing how many grams of trans fats are included in each serving. The revised labels won't be mandatory until Jan. 1, 2006 -- the government usually gives companies long lead times to respond to new regulations to avoid disrupting business -- but consumers are likely to see them sooner, especially on products with little or no trans fats .
The regulation could have big implications for the food industry as well as individual eating habits -- just as requiring warning labels on cigarettes nearly four decades ago led many people to give up smoking and sent the tobacco industry searching for lower-nicotine products. Already a number of companies, including Kraft Foods Inc. and McDonald's Corp. are scrambling for ways to reduce trans fats while keeping the familiar taste and texture in their popular products.
PepsiCo's Frito-Lay has succeeded in lessening or abolishing trans fats in its Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos snacks -- and has already put the newly required trans-fat line on their nutrition labels to tout the change. Legal Seafoods, a closely held group of 28 restaurants on the East Coast, started using a reduced trans-fat oil to fry its famous fish and switched its supplier of oyster crackers to one that doesn't use trans fats .
Just Wednesday, Unilever Best Foods North America, a unit of Unilever PLC, announced it plans to eliminate trans fats from its entire line of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spreads by the middle of next year.
But reformulating won't be easy for most companies. All fats, including trans fats , provide flavor and texture to foods. Last September, McDonald's grabbed headlines when it vowed to introduce a new oil that would cut trans fat in its fried foods, including halving the amount in its French fries. But so far, the company only has been able to cut trans fat in some fried-chicken products. It has put a hold on changing the oil for its fries, citing concerns about altering the taste. The chain says it continues testing.
Kraft, the nation's largest food company and maker of Oreo cookies and Oscar Mayer Lunchables, says it has been making strides in eliminating or reducing trans fats , but isn't sure when it will be able to complete the task. The toughest challenge is with "sandwich cookies," like Oreos (which contain 2.5 grams of trans fat per three-cookie serving) because it's difficult to get the cream filling to maintain its texture and shelf life without trans fats .
Food makers have turned for guidance to companies like Cargill, which has sold a line of both liquid and solid oils with reduced levels of trans fats for nearly a decade. It is easy to take trans fats out of chips, but baked goods are harder, said Willie Loh of Cargill's specialty-canola-oils unit. "Some companies may need to make changes to manufacturing," said Mr. Loh.
The new labels won't mean much for consumers who don't have additional knowledge and guidance. They won't put trans fats in context of a day's diet so people will have no way to glean from the label how much trans fat is a lot. As they can with other nutrients on the label, companies will be allowed to round down the amount of trans fat as zero grams per serving if the amount is anything under 0.5 gram. Similarly, if one serving of cookies has 1.4 grams of trans fat, the label can round down to list it as 1 gram.
Growing Awareness
The level of saturated fats -- which also raise bad cholesterol and are more common than trans fats -- has been listed on food labels since they were first required in the early 1990s. But it was only in the past several years that scientists became aware of how harmful trans fats are, and a movement developed to add them to food labels.
Now consumers will get the full "bad-fat" content from labels. (Other fats are generally beneficial because they help lower cholesterol.)
People should try to keep their intake of saturated and trans fats combined to 10% or less of the total calories they consume each day, says Scott Grundy, a well-known lipid specialist in Texas. That guideline applies not just to adults but to children over age two. The benchmarks are even lower for those already at risk of heart disease or with high cholesterol. They should get no more than 7% of calories from bad fats, for a total of 15.5 grams a day.
All this means a generally healthy person who eats 2,000 calories a day, should consume no more than 20 grams of saturated and trans fats .
Have a glazed donut for breakfast and you have eaten 6 grams of so-called bad fats. Grab a lunch of a Big Mac, fries and a soft drink and you've used up all 20 grams of your daily bad-fat allowance. The average American, however, eats a 2,250-calorie diet with about 15%, or 35 grams, coming from bad fat a day. "People have a ways to go" to reach the advisable ranges, said Margo Wootan of the nutrition advocacy group the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The trans-fat content in doughnuts and Big Macs may not come as much surprise. But the new labels are likely to contain some startling information for other products. According to research by Consumer Reports magazine, a serving of Nabisco Wheat Thins baked crackers (about 16 crackers) has 3.5 grams of bad fats. That is worse than Sunshine's Cheese-It crackers which have 3 grams of bad fat a serving. Kellogg's Cracklin' Oat Bran cereal has 3.5 grams of bad fat a serving, more than a container of chocolate Jello Pudding Snacks, which has 2.5 grams.
Consumer intake of trans fats really took off when food makers figured out how to add hydrogen to vegetable oil. The process, called hydrogenation, makes the oil more solid at room temperature. Hydrogenated oils make pastries flakier, breads moister and cookies fresher-tasting. It also delivers flavor in frozen foods and quick-preparation meals.
Nutrition researchers have known the perils of trans fats for years. But getting even the bare-bones quantity listing on food labels took nearly four years of wrangling between the FDA and the food industry. The industry beat back a proposal that would have prevented companies from touting their products as "lean" or "heart healthy" if they contained high levels of trans fats . The industry also scored a major win by getting the FDA to jettison a proposed footnote to labels that would have advised consumers to keep their intake of trans fats as low as possible.
The cautionary footnote was proposed by a panel of doctors convened to advise the government on the trans-fat issue. After reviewing the science, the panel concluded that even the smallest amount of trans fat increases the risk of coronary heart disease so it couldn't tell consumers how much trans fats they could eat without worrying. "There is no level at which there is no adverse effect," says Suzanne Hendrich, a professor at Iowa State University and a panel member.
Still, some nutritionists now worry that the focus on trans fats will lead people to lose sight of saturated fats. On average, Americans get 12% to 13% of their daily calories from saturated fats, but only 2% to 3% from trans fats , said Penny Kris-Etherton, a nutrition professor at Penn State University. "Don't get so waylaid by thinking about trans fats and forget about the bigger issue of saturated fat."
Corrections & Amplifications
The amount of trans fat in a serving of Nabisco Chips Ahoy! chocolate chip cookies is 1.5 grams, according to a Consumer Reports survey. The chart below incorrectly stated the figure as 4 grams.
The Skinny on Trans Fat
A look at the fat content in some common foods
PRODUCT TRANS FAT SATURATED FAT BAD FAT(1)
Mrs. Smith's Apple Pie 4 3 7
Dunkin' Donuts Glazed (2) 4 2.5 6.5
Entenmann's Donut Shoppe Donuts Glazed Popems 3 2.5 5
Burger King Dutch Apple Pie (3) 2 2.5 5
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! 70% Vegetable Oil Spread (stick) 2 1.5 4
Nabisco Chips Ahoy! Real Chocolate Chip Cookies (4) 1.5 2 1.5
Nabisco Original Flavor Wheat Thins Baked Snack Crackers 2 1 3.5
Kellogg's Cracklin' Oat Bran Cereal 1.5 2 3.5
Kellogg's Eggo Buttermilk Waffles 1.5 1.5 3
Jell-O Pudding Snacks Chocolate Flavor 1.5 1.5 2.5
Sunshine Cheez-It Baked Snack Crackers 1.5 1.5 2.5
Orville Redenbacher's Popping Corn-Reden Budders Movie Theater Butter 1 0.5 1.5
Quaker Chewy Granola Bars Chocolate Chip 0.5 1 1.5
Orville Redenbacher's Popping Corn-Butter Light 0.5 0 0.5
1) Trans and saturated fat combined. Because results are rounded to the nearest half-gram, the bad fat totals may not equal the sum of those individual fats.
2) Some companies disagree with the Consumer Reports numbers. Dunkin' Donuts says 1 glazed donut has 8g of total fat, 2.5g of trans fat and 1.5g of saturated fat.
3) Burger King says a wedge of Dutch Apple Pie has 14g total fat, 3g trans fat and 3g saturated fat.
4) Kraft Foods says Chips Ahoy! have 8g total fat, 2g trans fat, 2.5g saturated fat. Wheat Thins have 2.5g of trans fat.
Source: Consumer Reports
食品中的"隐形杀手"即将原形毕露
诱人的甜面包圈－－甚至小小的全麦饼乾－－对健康能有多大危害？用不了多长时间，消费者就能得到更清楚的答案了。
美国政府最近颁布了一条市场期待已久的规定，要求食品生产商在产品标签上标明易造成动脉堵塞的对人体有害的逆脂肪(trans fats)的含量。这是十年来美国食品监管机构最大的一项政策调整。
尽管肉类产品和部分乳制品本身即含有逆脂肪，但远远不及美国人从曲奇饼、薯片等休闲食品中吸收的逆脂肪量，虽然有些休闲食品的包装上写著'低脂'。
几乎所有的油炸和烘烤食品都含有部份逆脂肪。营养学家认为，逆脂肪危害性非常大，任何水平的逆脂肪含量都无法保证完全无害。它不仅会增加坏的胆固醇（即低密度脂蛋白胆固醇）的数量，而且会降低好的胆固醇（即高密度脂蛋白胆固醇）的数量，而好的胆固醇有助于降低动脉阻塞的风险。
根据美国食品和药物管理局(FDA)发布的这项新规定，食品公司应在产品的营养成分标签上增加一项内容：每份食品中逆脂肪的含量。该规定将从2006年1月1日起强制实行。政府通常会给公司较充足的准备期，对新规则作出反应，以避免影响公司业务。但消费者可能很快就会看到这样的新标签，特别是在那些逆脂肪含量为零或极低的食品的包装上。 这项新规定可能对整个食品行业以及个人的饮食习惯产生深远影响。一个可类比的例子是，40年前，美国政府要求烟草生产商在香烟包装上标明吸烟有害健康的警示语，结果导致很多人戒烟，也促使烟草业著手开发尼古丁含量更低的产品。实际上，目前已经有不少食品公司－－包括卡夫食品(Kraft Foods Inc.)和麦当劳(McDonald's Corp.)－－正在努力寻找新的途径，以求在降低逆脂肪的同时，保留产品原有的口味和质感。
百事公司(PepsiCo)旗下的Frito-Lay已成功地减少或去除了其休闲系列产品Doritos、Tostitos和Cheetos中的逆脂肪，并在营养成分标签中加入了有关逆脂肪含量的说明，以宣传公司产品在健康方面的改进。东海岸的私营餐饮集团Legal Seafoods也开始使用一种逆脂肪含量低的食用油来烹制拿手的海鲜菜肴，并把其牡蛎饼供应商换成了不使用逆脂肪的厂家。
上周三，联合利华(Unilever PLC)旗下的子公司Unilever Best Foods North America宣布，该公司计划在明年年中之前，让逆脂肪从它的I Can't Believe It's Not Butter产品系列中彻底消失。
但对大多数公司来说，重新调整食品配方并非一日之功。所有的脂肪－－包括逆脂肪－－都赋予食物特殊的口味和质感。去年9月份，麦当劳曾频繁出现在媒体头条，因为它宣布将使用一种新型食用油，以降低油炸食品中逆脂肪的含量，其中薯条的逆脂肪含量将减半。但迄今为止，麦当劳只勉强降低了部分炸鸡食品中的逆脂肪含量，并暂时搁置了更换食用油的计划，原因是担心改变食物的口味。这家连锁快餐公司表示仍在进行尝试。
作为美国最大的食品公司和奥利奥饼乾(Oreo)的生产商，卡夫食品表示，公司已经在去除及减少食品逆脂肪含量方面取得快速进展，但目前仍不能确定何时能完成这项工作。最大的挑战来自象奥利奥这样的夹心饼乾（每三块夹心饼乾即含有2.5克逆脂肪），因为没有逆脂肪很难让奶油夹心保持其现有的口感和保质期。 食品制造商纷纷转向Cargill之类的公司取经，因为Cargill已经有近10年销售低逆脂肪的液体油和固体油系列产品的历史。来自Cargill子公司的威利?罗(Willie Loh)表示，把逆脂肪从油炸食品中去除很容易，但烘烤食品就难对付得多了，一些公司可能需要改变生产工艺。
对于那些缺乏相关知识和指导的消费者来说，新的食品成分标签并没有太多的意义。他们不会把逆脂肪含量放在全天的食谱中考虑，因此无法从标签中估算出多少逆脂肪含量算过高。同标签上的其他营养成份一样，食品公司可以将逆脂肪含量四舍五入。如果每份食品中含有0.5克以下的逆脂肪，可以在标签中标为0克。同理，如果每份含有1.4克逆脂肪，则可以标为1克。
90年代初，饱和脂肪含量首先出现在食品标签中。饱和脂肪比逆脂肪更为常见，它也能增加有害胆固醇的数量。但直到最近几年，科学家们才意识到逆脂肪的危害，并由此发起了将逆脂肪含量列入食品标签的运动。
现在，消费者将通过食品标签了解所有不利于健康的脂肪的含量。其他类型的脂肪基本上对健康有益，因为它们有助于降低胆固醇。
得克萨斯州著名的脂质研究专家斯科特?格伦迪(Scott Grundy)表示，人们每天摄入的饱和脂肪和逆脂肪的含量应控制在所消耗的总热量的10%以下。新规定的指导标准不仅适用于成年人，而且适用于2周岁以上的儿童。对于可能罹患心脏病的人和胆固醇过高的人来说，这个标准应进一步降低至7%。
这意味著一个每天摄入2,000卡路里热量的健康的普通人不应摄入超过20克的饱和脂肪和逆脂肪。
如果你的早餐是一个甜面包圈，那么你已经摄入了6克的有害脂肪。如果你的午餐是一个"巨无霸"汉堡、炸薯条外加一杯软饮料，那么你已经达到了每天20克有害脂肪的摄入指标。但一个普通的美国人通常每天摄入2,250卡路里的热量，其中大约15%来自有害脂肪，也就是35克。宣传营养学的组织Center for Science in the Public Interest的马戈?伍坦(Margo Wootan)认为，人们有办法把有害脂肪摄入量控制在合理的范围内。
甜面包圈和"巨无霸"的逆脂肪含量也许并不让人感到意外，但其他产品的新标签中很可能包含一些惊人的信息。根据《消费者报告》杂志(Consumer Reports)的研究，每包纳贝斯克全麦薄饼(Nabisco Wheat Thins)含有3.5克的有害脂肪，而Sunshine生产的Cheese-It小吃每份含3克有害脂肪。凯洛格公司(Kellogg)的Cracklin' Oat Bran麦片每份含3.5克有害脂肪，比一盒Jello Pudding Snacks巧克力的有害脂肪含量(2.5克)还多。
当食品生产商开始使用氢化植物油后，消费者摄入的逆脂肪量大大增加。经过氢化的植物油在室温下更显固态。氢化油可以使甜饼更薄、面包更绵软、曲奇口感更新鲜。它也用来给速冻食品和半成品快餐添加风味。
许多年前，营养学家就已经了解了逆脂肪的危害。但为了把最基本的数量标在食品标签上，FDA和食品行业之间足足僵持了4年。
FDA曾提议，禁止食品公司将逆脂肪含量较高的食品标榜为"低脂"或"利于心脏健康"，但在食品行业的极力阻挠下，该提议遭到否决。FDA还曾提议在食品标签中加入建议消费者尽量降低逆脂肪摄入量的标注，但也在食品行业的反对下被迫搁浅。
要求增加警示性标注的提议是由政府逆脂肪问题顾问小组的医生们提出的。在对科学数据进行审议后，这个顾问小组得出结论：即使最低量地摄入逆脂肪，也会增加心血管疾病的发病风险。因此，消费者每天可以放心地摄入多少逆脂肪是个无法说清的问题。作为该小组成员的艾奥瓦州立大学(Iowa State University)教授苏珊娜?亨得里希(Suzanne Hendrich)表示，任何水平的逆脂肪含量都对人体不利。
然而，一些营养学家现在又开始担心，对逆脂肪问题的关注可能使人们忽视饱和脂肪的问题。宾夕法尼亚州立大学(Penn State University)的营养学教授克里斯-艾瑟顿(Penny Kris-Etherton)表示，一般说来，美国人每天通过饱和脂肪摄入的热量占总热量的12%到13%，而通过逆脂肪摄入的热量仅占2%到3%。他认为，不应因为过于担心逆脂肪而忽略了更严重的饱和脂肪。
在有关新标签的规定正式实施之前，您可以利用以下的方法避免摄入过量的逆脂肪：
--阅读食品包装上的成份表，避免食用包含不完全氢化油的食物。这里面有些食用油听起来可能很健康，比如豆油。
--选择比较软的或者液体的人造黄油，不要选用固体的硬黄油，因为后者的有害脂肪含量更高。
--选择饱和脂肪含量低的食品。逆脂肪与饱和脂肪在人体内的作用相似，通常相伴出现。 --使用橄榄油或者菜籽油，这对你的心脏有好处。
