It is a bit more complicated than that. The main argument to remove industrial trans fat (ITF) from food is that it is just useless. However: (i) the science linking ITF with health problems is correlative. No study has shown directly a causal role of ITF. This means that eliminating ITF will not remove other factors that may play a more important role in the associations observed. (ii) ITF have to be replaced by other source of fats (ex palm oil). These often contain saturated and omega-6 fats with their own health or environmental issues. In my lab, I have exposed mice to massive amount of ITF without finding any obvious adverse effects….(Phivilay, et al. Neuroscience. 2009;159 (1):296–307). The conclusion is : yes, we should remove ITF from our diet because we can. However, we should not go freak about it.
5
I'll betcha dollars to donuts - pun very much intended - that the sugar and wheat flour in the sweet treats in the photograph will increase disease and reduce life span far more than any transfats they may have been fried in.
To say nothing of the use of solvent processed industrial bird seed oils like canola, soy, corn, cottonseed, etc. The Omega 6 ratios, even with Canola, and all the epithelial softening polyunsaturated fatty acids are far bigger killers (in your very own kitchen cupboard!) than all the transfats put together.
Eat. Real. Food. Even Mr. Pollan agrees with that.
5
It’s a good thing Obama didn’t initiate this ban, Trump would put trans fats in our water, just to spite us.
40
So they're going to help millions of people grow old to suffer from dementia, Alzheimer's or some other form of medical malady.
We where not meant to live for ever, so how about letting us enjoy life with trans fats instead of trying to play god.
4
Er, you want to kill or debilitate yourself, be my guest. Cigarettes and heroin available on your street corner. Me, I can do without this poisonous crap that didn't even exist until some mad scientist concocted it in a laboratory.
22
I preferred reheated palm oill when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia in 1971. Unheated palm oil, frankly, smells like urine. Reheating it removes all of the odor. Thank heavens I was young and healthy.
3
In an overcrowded world why are we so focused on forcing people’s decisions to save lives? Completely unnecessary. Let’s focus on people who make good decisions. And I don’t care to hear about people not having choices.
7
And I don't care that you don't care to hear about people not having choices. I am tired of having to read labels in supermarkets and reject just about every baked good because it contains an unnatural ingredient that's known to be lethal. And even if I do that, I can't know what's in everything I'm served at a restaurant or another person's house.
Nor am I so sociopathic that I am willing to stand by doing nothing while someone poisons my less informed neighbors. But if you are that sociopathic, consider that the cost of those heart attacks and strokes drives up your insurance rates and your taxes.
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I certainly hope that your goodwill extends to your neighbors who smoke - more than 400K Americans die each year from smoking-related illnesses, yet the product they consume remains legal, easily available, and relatively affordable. Worst of all, it's even subsidized by the government.
Right. Let the people in the developing world just die. (Sarcasm alert).
4
It is one thing to get rid of trans-fats in the US, but it is another to get rid of them in the developing world. Once things are illegal in the US, companies make money selling the same items to the developing world. The major corporations that rely on trans-fats, as well as the people who manufacture palm oil, will likely have some say in the progress of this proposal since the US is no longer a market.
6
American restaurants by and large depend on large amounts of fats including tons of butter, salt, and sugar so I do not patronize them. But I would if they stopped using these excessively.
What you get at McDonalds
-Vegetable oil for frying, which is a blend of 7 ingredients, including: canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), citric acid, and dimethylpolysiloxane.
11
I have to ask:
Why should millions of lives be saved?
Humans have no predators - except themselves.
Humans are decimating other species.
Earth is choking already.
17
Because when a 52 YO breadwinner dies of a Heart attack it effects more than just him.
17
Don’t worry, our species is busy building nukes for our certain demise. A heart attack is a blessing in this dark and ignorant world.
5
Sorry, I'm not prepared to kill people just because some idiots breed like bunnies. The obvious solution to this is birth control, not suffering and death.
15
Trans fats were created when saturated fats were made public enemy number one by a corrupt; or, at least very biased, government official decades ago. Just one more example where corporate/industry influence corrupted our political process at the expense of the American people.
You can read about how corporate influence has resulted in decades of unhealthy eating in America in "The Big Fat Surprise" by Nina Teicholz.
17
"Trans fats were created when saturated fats were made public enemy number one by a corrupt; or, at least very biased, government official decades ago."
But of course, the governments desire to BAN trans fat comes from entirely benign motives and won't have any bad effects down the road.
JKW, you've made a basic error, which is assuming that because one decision was corrupt every other must be. Also, you don't seem to know that artificial trans fats were never a part of our diet until they were created in laboratories 100 years ago. Obviously, we're fine without eating them.
The science is clear on this: artificial trans fats are lethal. That has never been the case with natural saturated fats, or even the chemically different trans fats that are a natural part of our diet.
We cannot afford to assume that everything that's said is right or everything is wrong. We have to do due diligence and, to the extent that is possible, learn to distinguish the white hats from the black. Anyone who did that has known for some years now that saturated fats aren't the primary driver of heart disease (see for example the "French paradox"), and that trans fats are lethal.
Hell, we knew that trans fats were lethal back in the 1970's. That's something like *40 years* during which I didn't slowly poison myself, while you presumably did.
By the way, there are other substances in our food supply that are just as bad as trans fats and still haven't been banned. Do you know what they are, or do you plan to poison yourself slowly for another 40 years?
1
You are incorrect.
Transfats were not "created" as some marketing intention.
Round about 120 years ago millers of cotton had all this oil that they didn't know what to do with. Homemakers were used to cooking with fats naturally solid at room temperatures: butter, lard, and tallow.
By "partially hydrogenating" the liquid oils, it became solid and presto zingo, an emotionally acceptable substitute for what people have been baking and cooking with for ten thousand years.
The transfats created in the process were something unintended, and certainly in those days, unknown.
4
I may be mistaken, but trans-fats remain prevalent in restaurants across America, irrespective of the federal ban, which only applies to processed and manufactured foods.
18
The drive to eliminate saturated fat from restaurants has resulted in the use of fats which are far more lethal than the natural fats that they replaced. Frying is bad for us in general, but it is particularly lethal when these fats are used.
2
You are mistaken.
As noted, even Crisco has been processed to have no transfats for six years.
Please don't mix ignorance into a good discussion.
5
Eliminating the availability and use consumption of trans fats is a wonderful idea. Let's expedite this change by educating people and -- in most cases -- improving their quality of life so that they'll want to preserve it. If you think that's not important, consider how many MILLIONS of people die prematurely every year because they continue to use tobacco.
12
How sad that our knowledge of the harmful effects of trans-fat have not been definitively revealed until now. Maybe this health science fact will restore the health of Indonesian forest lands.
For the past 20 or so years a vast Palm oil industry has sprung up in Indonesia that has been deadly for the bio-diversity of unique fauna not found elsewhere. Of course, the same could be said for the vast soy bean plantations in Brazil.
Maybe Indonesia can now start replanting its lands to help species recover and restore some of the natural order, just for the good of it.
11
The knowledge of the harmful effects of trans fats has been known for something like 40 years now. I've avoided them since the 1980's.
You can't rely on government agencies to protect you from business. Business is just too powerful.
3