Trans fat, the nastiest but least-known member of the fatty-acid family, lurks inside a lot of popular food brands without any disclosure on the label. But now it may be about to break into public view.
The fat has characteristics of two major fat categories: saturated and unsaturated. It not only raises bad cholesterol, as saturated fat does, but also can lower a person's good-cholesterol count. Walter Willett, co-author of a recent New England Journal of Medicine study and chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, Mass., calls trans fat "the biggest disaster in the U.S. food supply," because it destroys essential fatty acids while raising cholesterol.
The Food and Drug Administration is currently debating whether to require food companies to break out trans-fat content in the closely read nutrition data on product labels. That could make life tougher for many grocery products in this fat-conscious world. Even relatively nutritious foods sold under the labels of Campbell Soup Co.'s Pepperidge Farm and ConAgra Inc.'s Healthy Choice contain small amounts of trans fat. The stuff helps cookies and crackers stay fresh-tasting longer, makes breads moister and pastries flakier.
Trans fat is created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil. The process, called partial hydrogenation, creates a fat with the same consistency as animal fat-margarine, for example.
Generally, the harder or more solid the fat, the more saturated it is, such as butter and lard. Currently, fat watchers check labels for saturated fats, which raise bad cholesterol, causing a buildup of fatty deposits in arteries. Many assume that the remaining fats in a product -- labels also list "total fats" -- are the healthier unsaturated fats. But what few realize is that trans fats are included in unsaturated fats -- technically correct, but misleading in the good-bad shorthand that has evolved for fats. (Good cholesterol prevents the buildup of fatty deposits.)
Lurking But Not Labeled
Trans fat can act like saturated fats, though they don't show up on labels. A sampling of food with a high ratio of trans fat, in percent:
Snack crackers 40% Chocolate-chip cookies 36% Vanilla wafers (low fat) 32% Corn-muffin mix 32% Margaine, stick 32% Taco shells, baked 31% Potato 30% Doughnuts (cake-type) 29% Source: USDA, Agricultural Research Service, Nutrient Data Laboratory analysis of selected brands
A separate listing for trans fat could clear up some of the confusion and could also encourage food companies to reduce the trans-fat content in their products. Such a move would delight nutrition police like the Center for Science in the Public Interest, based in Washington. It wants the FDA to include trans fats in the saturated-fat section of nutrition labels.
Nutritionists, public-health experts and food companies have been quietly lobbying the FDA over trans fat, contributing close to 1,000 comments since 1994. The American Dietetic Association and the American Society for Clinical Nutrition came out with position papers back in 1996 against trans-fat labeling on the ground of insufficient scientific data. These views bolstered the points of the Snack Food Association (representing companies like PepsiCo Inc.'s Frito-Lay unit), the Institute for Shortening and Edible Oils (whose members include Archer Daniels Midland Co.) and other trade groups representing food companies.
Meantime, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil proliferated, as an ingredient in such foods as peanut butter (to keep the oils from separating), low-fat ice cream and cream cheese. It also became the cooking fat of choice for fast-food restaurants, which were pressured to stop frying foods in animal fats or saturated-fat-rich tropical oils. Today, hydrogenated products account for about half of the 20-billion-pound U.S. annual market for vegetable oils.
In recent years, some studies have focused on the trans fat in margarine, causing some consumers to switch to butter. So, margarine makers began looking for ways to eliminate trans fat. Promise margarine, from Unilever PLC's Lipton division, replaced its margarine line with versions nearly free of trans fat last October. The label says "contains zero grams of trans fatty acids per serving."
"Trans was starting to cloud the distinction that margarine is better than butter," says David Blanchard, Lipton's director of research. Lipton still uses hydrogenation but says its new formula doesn't create any trans fat.
Nabisco Holdings Corp.'s Fleischmann's margarine has reduced trans fat in some of its products. And GFA Brands Inc., a Cresskill, N.J., food company, markets Smart Balance, a margarine-like spread. "Patented to improve cholesterol ratio," its label proclaims. "Non-hydrogenated. No trans fats."
Gourmet-bread and specialty-cracker manufacturers also have introduced versions with labels saying "trans-free" or "no hydrogenated oils."
All other food makers should follow suit, says Harvard's Mr. Willett. Trans fat, he says, "can be removed overnight," adding: "The manufacturers put it there, and they can take it out. Not a bit of it has to be there."
Food companies say if they take out trans fat, they will have to put in more saturated fat to maintain taste and texture. Then there is the cost issue. A world without trans fats could mean a very expensive and unappetizing Oreo. Olive oil, heralded for its zero-saturated fat-content and positive effect on good cholesterol, is 400% more expensive than regular soybean oil.
What is more, olive oil doesn't help bread rise. Nor does it keep cookies from crumbling or offer the cream-like consistency other saturated-fat oils provide.
As a compromise, Cargill Inc. introduced Elitra, a line of oils that contain between 8% and 20% saturated fats, lower than other oils, and are trans-free. But Elitra's cost has made it a hard sell to food companies. "We're giving them options, but the food industry hasn't been as active as we are in using this," says Dan Lempert, director of research for Cargill.
Peter Pintauro, a professor of chemical engineering at Tulane University, New Orleans, who has developed an alternative to hydrogenation, says manufacturers won't change unless they have to. "Reinvesting is an admission that the current processes are obsolete and unhealthy," he says.
Companies counter that they haven't heard from consumers that trans fat is a concern. A spokeswoman for Oreo maker Nabisco says the company is "evaluating new technologies" but adds that "one thing we'll never do is compromise taste and quality."
In the avant-garde of the war against trans fat, Wild Oats Community Markets, a company in Boulder, Colo., that operates several chains of natural-food stores, says it is no longer bringing new products that contain trans fats into its stores. It is working with manufacturers on reformulating their products to reduce trans fats in products it already stocks and asking them to disclose the trans-fat content on the label. The company also is working on how to make its in-house baked goods look and taste like those with trans fat.
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