The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that food companies will need to remove trans fat from food they make, citing the known harmful effects of the ingredient on health. So say goodbye to trans fat, it is officially on the way out.
The agency determined that trans fat is not “generally recognized as safe” to be added to food, meaning that trans fat will now be considered illegal food additives. Companies cannot add partially hydrogenated oils, the major source of trans fat, to foods. They now have three years to either remove trans fat from their food, or petition the FDA to request permission to use trans fat for specific cases.
“We made this determination based on the available scientific evidence and the findings of expert panels,” Susan Mayne, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said in a statement. Studies have found that trans fat increases people’s levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or bad cholesterol, and decreases levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or good cholesterol, according to Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer watchdog group that has advocated for the removal of trans fat.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that removing trans fat could prevent up to 20,000 heart attacks, and 7,000 deaths from heart disease, each year in the U.S. But trans fat won’t be completely gone because it occurs naturally in small amounts in meat and dairy products, and is present in low levels in some oils, the FDA said…….
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