Trans fats are being phased out, insist manufacturers
Products with a retail value of more than £1.5bn are being ‘dramatically reformulated’ to reduce harmful trans fats, according to new research from the Food and Drink Federation.
However, the notion that UK consumers are particularly exposed is a myth, with government figures showing that trans fats consumption in the UK is below the 2% upper limit recommended by the Department of Health, said FDF communications director Julian Hunt.
“While manufacturers are cutting levels of trans fats, we want to dispel the myth that this is a major problem for the UK. Trans fats appear in only a relatively small number of products. In fact, government statistics show they make up only 1.2% of total energy intake.”
Trans fatty acids occur naturally in foods such as milk and beef produced from ruminant animals. However, most are produced during partial hydrogenation (hardening) of vegetable oils that are liquid at room temperature to create fats that are semi solid at room temperature. These in turn are used in margarines, bakery products, fried foods and other processed foods made using these oils.
A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal written by researchers from the University of Oxford, has called for manufacturers to list trans fats as well as cholesterol and saturated fat on food labels to help reduce coronary heart disease.
However, this would require a change in European labelling legislation, claimed the FDF. “You can’t list trans fats on the ingredients declaration as such, as they are by-products of a process rather than ingredients. However, if you make a claim on your pack about a product being low in trans fats, you are then allowed to note the trans fat content on the label.”
Several leading branded manufacturers are reducing or eliminating trans fats from their products, said the FDF. These include Cadbury, which is “reducing trans fats to less than 0.5g per single serving”; GlaxoSmithKline, which aims to “reduce significantly or completely eradicate trans fats by 2007”; and Kellogg UK, which aims to remove trans fats from “the small number of snack products which currently contain them” by the end of this year.
The majority of Masterfoods brands contain less than 0.5% trans fats, while Dairy Crest, Kerry Foods and Unilever UK Foods have all reduced trans fats in branded retail fat spreads to less than 1%. Nestlé said trans fats would not be added in any new confectionery product launches.
