Watch out for trans fats and saturated fats in your daily meals -
CHOICE # 372 (October 15, 2007)
PDF version
Food manufacturers are urged to
reduce the trans fats in their products.
The appeal was issued by the
Consumer Council in a test report in collaboration with the Centre
for Food Safety.
The test covered a wide array
of bakery products of different types: 23 breads, 14 cakes, 7 egg
tarts, 3 chicken pies, and 11 batter-made food (egg rolls, waffles,
egg puffs).
Included in the test were also
14 fried foods (French fries, potato cut fries, fried chicken,
fried pork chop, fried fritters and deep-fried pastries), and 8
butter and margarine/margarine-like products.
The test, on altogether 80 food
products, reflects the rising public concern over the presence of
trans fats in many of our daily snacks and meals.
The revelation of the test
offers little reassurance for letting our guard down. It does,
however, point the way for consumers to avoid or to cut down on
those items that are rich in trans fats.
Trans fats have been linked to
increased risk of coronary heart disease with growing evidence and
are considered to be worse than saturated fats that we are more
familiar with.
The concern is trans fats will
not only raise the level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL or bad
cholesterol) in the blood, like saturated fats, but will also lower
the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL or good
cholesterol).
The test revealed that some of
our sampled foods contained high level of trans fats, for example,
the cream-filled breads with shredded coconut( 
), which are a local
favourite.
In two samples of this kind,
they were found to contain about 1.3g and 1.5g of trans fats in
each (weighing 95g and 83g) respectively.
That means the mere consumption
of a single cream-filled, shredded-coconut bread will contribute to
some 60% to 70% of the WHO/FAO recommended daily intake of trans
fats (for a person with a daily energy intake of 2,000 Calories),
let alone the trans fats that one will consume in other
foods.
Frequent consumption of this
food could lead to an intake of trans fats in excess of the
recommended limits.
According to WHO/FAO
recommendation, the intake of trans fats should be less than 1% of
daily energy intake, i.e. for a 2,000 Calorie diet, the daily
intake of trans fats should be less than 2.2g.
On the whole, the test found
trans fats in the bread sample category to range from zero to
1.8g/100g. So, there is actually plenty of choices for the
consumers to select carefully and wisely in the interest of
cardiovascular health.
It also clearly implies that it
is possible for food manufacturers to reduce trans fats in their
products.
The same wide variation in
trans fats was found in other groups of samples: egg tarts and
chicken pies (0.12g to 0.82g/100g), and fried foods (0.034g to
2.4g/100g).
In addition, the test examined
7 margarine/margarine-like samples and found their trans fats
contents to vary substantially from 0.12g to 4.2g/100g.
This gives rise to the concern
that manufacturers may have used an industrially-produced
hydrogenated vegetable oil (in order to change from its natural
liquid form to semi-solid or solid form and to increase its shelf
life), which in turn produces trans fats in the food
product.
Food manufacturers are urged to
refrain from using hydrogenated vegetable oil for their food
products and, further, to label precisely if the products contain
such ingredients like vegetable shortening or margarine.
Currently in Hong Kong, there
is no legislative requirement for the labelling of trans fats
content of prepackaged food products for consumer
information.
Given the growing public
attention on trans fats in food, some products have voluntarily put
out "no trans fats" claim. Consumers should, however, be mindful
that other cardiovascular-disease-causing ingredients in these
products may not be necessarily also at a low level.
Also examined in the test was
the trans fats content of butter - since trans fats occur naturally
in milk products. The one butter sample included in the test
contained 3.5g/100g trans fats, which was found to be within the
range of general butter product specification according to
international data.
Generally, the consumption of
butter or margarine products is comparatively lower than other
food. But consumers will do well to watch the actual amount they
consume to avoid excessive trans fats intake.
Among the 80 test products, 39
were prepackaged products, in which 7 samples (2 cakes, 1 butter
and 4 margarine-like products) were labelled with trans fats
contents on their packages.
The two cake samples labelled
to contain 0 trans fats per serving, were detected with trans fats
content of 0.11g/100g and 0.19g/100g respectively. The discrepancy
may be due to the fact that in the US, the trans fats content may
be expressed as 0g if the product contains less than 0.5g trans
fats per serving.
For the butter and
margarine-like samples, all but one were found to actually contain
less trans fats than their own claims - by 17% to 72%.
As part of the trans fats test,
the samples were also examined for their contents of saturated
fats, another risk factor for heart disease.
In general, some of the fried
foods were found to contain quite a high level of saturated fats.
For example, for one potato cut fries and two fried chicken
samples, the consumption of a single portion of these samples may
already contribute to 60% to 70% of the WHO/FAO daily intake
recommendation on saturated fats (for a person with a daily energy
intake of 2,000 Calories).
Consumers are advised to
consult the findings of the test for details in this October issue
of CHOICE.
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