Trans-Fatty Acid Nutrition Labels
August 18th 2006 02:35
An ABC news report has revealed that the Australian Food Authority may force food manufacturers to display warnings of trans-fatty acids on their nutrition labels.
Trans-fatty acids are harmful fats that are hidden in deep-fried fast foods and processed foods made with margarine or shortening. Consuming this kind of fat (as with saturated fat) can lead to atherosclerosis (plaques clogging arteries) and heart disease. Find out more in my fats blog.
At the moment, packaged food has information of its total fat content and its included saturated fat content (and good fats if its a particularly healthy food). This system forces people to believe that if the saturated fat is say, 5% of total fat then the other 95% must be good fat, e.g. monounsaturated or polyunsaturated but this is not usually the case. The other 95% could well be trans fat. If the trans-fatty acids labels go through well know exactly how much bad fats are in our foods and wont need to just assume they are ok to eat.
ommes-1.jpg" target="_blank">Image part of the GNU Free Documentation License
A plate of fast food chips will give you a good dose of trans fat.
At the moment, packaged food has information of its total fat content and its included saturated fat content (and good fats if its a particularly healthy food). This system forces people to believe that if the saturated fat is say, 5% of total fat then the other 95% must be good fat, e.g. monounsaturated or polyunsaturated but this is not usually the case. The other 95% could well be trans fat. If the trans-fatty acids labels go through well know exactly how much bad fats are in our foods and wont need to just assume they are ok to eat.
ommes-1.jpg" target="_blank">Image part of the GNU Free Documentation License
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