[Obesity Discussion]

Trans fat not only obesity villain


BY NANCI HELLMICH

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Artery-clogging trans fats are the villain of the moment in the enduring story of America's love affair with food.

New York and Philadelphia have moved to ban trans fats from restaurant foods, forcing chefs to find alternatives to the partially hydrogenated oils that have kept french fries tasty and pastries firm.

Big food companies are squeezing trans fats out of products from Oreos to Cheetos, and rushing to find palatable substitute oils. Even Crisco has been reformulated so that it's trans-fat free. Fast-food chains such as Wendy's and McDonald's have scrambled to figure out ways to cook fries without trans fats.

At the Candlelight Inn, in Sterling and Rock Falls, the switch was an easy one to make, said owner Matthew Prescott.

"We had already used a corn-canola blend that had a little trans fats in it. We use the same thing now but it has gone through an extra process to remove the trans fats," he said.

Though it is slightly more expensive, Prescott believes the change has been worth it. He added the customers have not seemed to notice a difference in the food.

"I have not had one single complaint from a customer," Prescott said.

Fast food restaurants have been getting in on the act as well. This month the final Culver's restaurant in the country will make the switch to a similar canola oil, said Barbara Behling, the company's director of public relations. Culver's has stores in Dixon and Rock Falls.

"We have relied on the (United States Department of Agriculture), the American Heart Association and the American Diatetic Association and listened to their recommendations," Behling said. "I think the science behind their recommendations has been pretty conclusive."

Not a cure-all

Some nutrition and health analysts, though, said the preoccupation with trans fats has gone too far.

They said in some cases, trans fats simply are being replaced with other unhealthy oils. At a time when 66 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, the analysts said the nation's fixation with trans fats is drawing attention away from other important reasons that Americans' diets are so bad for their hearts - they continue to consume too many calories, too much junk food and not enough fruits and vegetables.

"It is important to remind ourselves that changing oils and removing trans fat does not magically turn a deep-fried food into a health food," said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian at Northwestern Memorial Wellness Institute in Chicago and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

Robert Eckel, a past president of the American Heart Association, said "getting rid of trans fats is important" because strong evidence indicates they contribute to higher levels of harmful cholesterol and heart disease. "The idea that this is the most harmful (type of) fat is a matter of debate."

Some companies and restaurants have switched from partially hydrogenated oils to others, such as palm oil and coconut oil, that make the resulting products only marginally healthier. Palm and coconut oils are high in saturated fat, which contributes to heart disease and has been shown to raise the level of LDL cholesterol (that's the bad kind) in the blood.

"The American Heart Association does not consider it acceptable to substitute saturated fat for trans fats" in food products and restaurant foods, Eckel said.

Trans fats have been "overemphasized when you consider the big picture," says Shelley Goldberg of the International Food Information Council, an education group supported by the food, beverage and agricultural industries.

"My concern as a registered dietitian is that with all this focus on trans fats, there's not enough focus on an overall healthful diet, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, as well as fish and vegetable oils."

More to be done

Trans fats deserve the attention they're getting as menaces to public health, analysts said.

They are "a metabolic poison that has no place in human diets," said Walter Willett, head of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and the nation's leading researcher on the subject. They "should be eliminated as quickly as possible."

Willett and other researchers have linked trans fats to heart disease, high cholesterol, obesity and other health problems.

Research has shown total cholesterol can be lowered when trans fats and saturated fats are replaced with oils that are high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, such as canola, corn, soybean, sunflower and olive oils. So in the past decade, some food companies, fast-food chains and restaurants have switched to those types of oils or mixtures of them.

However, many restaurants and major food companies, such as Kraft, the maker of Oreo cookies, have found it's most difficult to replace trans fats in baked goods such as muffins, croissants, cakes and cookies.

The partially hydrogenated oils give baked goods firmness and preservative qualities that are difficult to mimic with other fat alternatives, said Robert Reeves, president of the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils, a trade group based in Washington, D.C.

Kraft has reformulated its recipes to remove or reduce trans fats in more than 650 products, spokeswoman Elisabeth Wenner said. "It was not simply swapping out one oil for another," she said. "In some cases, it was inventing proprietary blends of oils."

For most products, Kraft found it could use relatively healthier oils. But "for a few reformulations, the saturated fat did increase slightly," Wenner said.

The Food and Drug Administration continues to categorize trans fats as generally recognized as safe, a special grouping for chemicals or substances added to food considered acceptable by experts.

Barbara Schneeman, head of the agency's office of nutrition, labeling and dietary supplements said the agency "has taken a major step" by mandating the listing of trans fats in nutrition information on food containers.

"We are looking at additional steps regarding claims for trans fats," she said.

In the meantime, "consumers can't look at trans fat by itself. They have to look at trans fat, saturated fat and cholesterol for reducing cardiovascular disease," she said. "All of that information is available to them through the nutrition facts label."

Types of fats

* Trans fats: They occur naturally in foods such as milk, butter, cheese and beef, but most are found in the form of partially hydrogenated oils. They are created by a process that adds hydrogen molecules to vegetable oils, creating a more stable oil that's useful for food processing and cooking. These oils help create a special texture, firmness and longer shelf life for many products.

* Saturated fats: They are found in meats, baked goods and full-fat dairy products. They are more stable than unsaturated fats because of their chemical structure, which is important for cooking performance, maintaining flavor and preventing rancidity, according to the International Food Information Council. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that people consume less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fats daily.

* Unsaturated fats: Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are found in fish, nuts and vegetable oils including corn oil, soybean, canola. When these fats replace saturated fat and trans fats, they help reduce blood cholesterol and thus lower the risk of heart disease. Dietary guidelines recommend a total fat intake of 20 percent to 35 percent of calories, with most coming from these kinds of fats.

Telegraph reporter Andrew Walters contributed to this report





I think this infatuation with trans fats has taken people's focus off important areas in the obesity fight as well. I think we can thank the media for this who is either helping with the propoganda machine put on by the food industry or just doesn't understand how this plays into the big picture.