Popular foods like pie crusts, frostings and microwave popcorn are to largely be rid of artery-clogging trans fats after a decision by US President Barack Obama’s administration to phase them out over the next three years.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday ordered food companies to phase out artificial trans fats, calling them a threat to public health.
Consumers are not likely to notice much of a difference in their favorite foods, but the administration said the move would reduce coronary heart disease and prevent thousands of fatal heart attacks every year.
Scientists say there are no health benefits to the fats, which are used in processing food and in restaurants, usually to improve texture, shelf life or flavor. They can raise levels of “bad” cholesterol and lower “good” cholesterol, increasing the risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the US.
The fats are created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil to make it more solid, which is why they are often called partially hydrogenated oils.
Once a staple of the US diet — used in shortening and microwave popcorn — most artificial trans fats are already gone. The FDA said that between 2003 and 2012, people ate about 78 percent less trans fat as food companies began using other kinds of oils to replace them.
However, some foods still have them and those trans fats remaining in the food supply are a health concern, the FDA said.
Foods that commonly contain trans fats include frostings, pie crusts, biscuits, microwave popcorn, coffee creamers, frozen pizza, refrigerated dough, vegetable shortenings and stick margarines.
To phase the fats out, the FDA in 2013 made a preliminary determination that partially hydrogenated oils no longer fall in the agency’s “generally recognized as safe” category, which covers thousands of additives that manufacturers can add to foods without FDA review. The agency made that decision final on Tuesday, giving food companies until June 2018 to phase them out.
Now that trans fats are to be taken off the list of safe additives, any firm that wants to use them would have to petition the FDA to allow it. That would phase them out almost completely, since not many uses are likely to be deemed as safe. Still, food companies are hoping for some exceptions.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the main trade group for the food industry, is working with companies on a petition that would formally ask the FDA if it can say there is a “reasonable certainty of no harm” from some specific uses of the fats. It provided no specifics.
However, the association said that the FDA’s three-year compliance period “minimizes unnecessary disruptions to commerce.”
Trans fats are widely considered the worst kind of fats for your heart, even worse than saturated fats, which can also contribute to heart disease.
The advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest first petitioned the FDA to ban trans fats 11 years ago. Its director, Michael Jacobson, said the decision to phase them out “is probably the single most important thing the FDA has ever done for the healthfulness of the food supply.”
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