Responding to the Food and Drug Administration’s order to disclose the amount of unhealthy trans fats on food labels by January 2006, food companies are racing to get rid of trans fats in their products. There are now, for example, "trans-fat-free" Oreos, Fritos, and Cocoa Puffs.
That’s the good news. The bad news: Some companies are replacing trans fats with palm oils and other high-in-saturated-fat tropical oils that are almost as heart-damaging as trans fats. Kraft, for instance, is using palm oil for the filling in its three trans-fat-free Oreo cookie varieties, reported The New York Times in February.
Yes, Trans Fats Are the Worst Kind Of Fat
Trans fats are man-made fats that were originally liquid oils but through hydrogenation (adding hydrogen to vegetable oils) become solid. In ingredient lists, foods with trans fats are usually listed as having "partially hydrogenated vegetable oils" like soybean, cottonseed, or canola. Numerous studies are now finding that trans fats not only raise LDL bad cholesterol but also lower HDL good cholesterol, prompting scientists nationwide to deride them as the worst kind of fat.
But Palm Oil Is a Horrible Alternative
But replacing them with palm oil and other tropical oils like coconut oil and palm kernel oil? "This is nuts!" exclaims Jeff Novick, MS, RD, LV/N, Director of Nutrition at the Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa in Aventura, Florida. "All these tropical oils are highly saturated fats. Like butter, cheese, and meat, tropical oils raise LDL cholesterol and clog arteries with plaque, increasing your risk of a heart attack."
"In fact, tropical oils can have more cholesterol-raising saturated fat than even butter," emphasizes Jeff. Coconut oil is 92% saturated, making it more saturated than butter, beef tallow, or even lard. Palm oil, though it contain less saturated fat (50%), is full of a type of saturated fat, palmitic acid, which appears to be most conducive to heart disease.
Artery Cloggers
Ironically, it was health concerns over tropical oils in the 1980s that helped spur food manufacturers to use more trans fats in the first place. "Now we’re going BACK to tropical oils?" bemoans Jeff. "We’re trading one artery-clogger for another?!"
As outraged as Jeff are nonprofit organizations, like Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in Washington, D.C., which complained to the FDA in August that some food labels, specifically Newman’s Own, are leading Americans to believe that palm oil is significantly more healthful than trans fats. CSPI urged the FDA to halt the deceptive labeling.
"The fact that palm oil isn’t quite as bad as the absolute worst fat [trans fats] shouldn’t give food marketers carte blanche to portray it as some kind of health food," said CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson, PhD, in a press statement.
What To Do:
As the "10 Quick Tips for Deciphering Food Labels" article in our January/February 2005 ePerspective Edition recommends, go straight to the ingredient list. Steer clear of any product that contains partially hydrogenated oils and/or lists trans fats on the label as well as those containing tropical oils like coconut oil, palm kernel oil, or palm oil. Both trans fats and tropical oils are bad news for your heart, just like butter, lard, and beef tallow.
If you’re as mad as Jeff and CSPI, take political action. Write your congressmen and senators, urging them to press the FDA to crack down on claims that trick consumers into thinking that palm oils and other tropical oils are health foods, when in fact they are high in saturated fats that promote heart disease.
Or go straight to the FDA at www.fda.gov or:
Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane Room 14-71
Rockville, MD 20857
Let’s nip this one before we’re "back to the future."
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