FDA wants to ban trans fats from food, citing health concerns

Holy moley! Is this good news? I hate trans-fats, I am a commie-pinko (not at all really true), and I think this might be a smidge to much regulation. It will be for the greater good, but then again, every crack down always is. I don't know.

FDA wants to ban trans fats from food, citing health concerns
By Linda Carroll, NBC News
The Food and Drug Administration has declared war on trans fats. The government agency said Thursday it would require food makers to gradually phase out artificial trans fats — the artery-clogging ingredient found in crackers, cookies, pizza and many other baked goods.
The change could potentially prevent 20,000 heart attacks a year and 7,000 deaths, said FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg.
While the amount of trans fats consumed by Americans has dropped dramatically over the last decade, they still “remain an area of significant public health concern,” Hamburg said during a press conference Thursday.

The FDA hasn’t yet set a time table for sweeping trans fats from the market. "We want to do it in a way that doesn't unduly disrupt markets," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods. Still, the "industry has demonstrated that it is by and large feasible to do."
Trans fats are considered harmful because they increase risks for heart disease by both raising bad cholesterol levels (LDL) and lowering good cholesterol (HDL). New York City banned trans fats from restaurants in 2007. In 2006, the FDA began requiring food manufacturers to include trans fats on nutritional labels. Food marketers have been gradually going trans-fat-free in recent years -- McDonald's switched to zero-trans fat cooking oil in its iconic french fries in 2008.

The FDA announced that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the primary dietary source of artificial trans fat in processed foods, are not “generally recognized as safe” for use in foods.
The agency has opened a 60-day comment period to collect additional data and to get input on how much time it might take for food manufacturers to reformulate products that currently contain artificial trans fats.
In the meantime, Hamburg said, “consumers can make healthy choices by checking trans fat levels on the nutrition facts panel on the back of processed food packages and avoiding those with trans fats.”
There are many brands now with no or low levels available to consumers, she added.

The independent Institute of Medicine (IOM) has already concluded that trans fats provide no known health benefit and that there is no safe level of consumption of artificial trans fat, Hamburg said. Additionally, the IOM has recommended that Americans keep their consumption of trans fats as low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet.
Food manufacturers began adding artificial trans fatty acids, or partially hydrogenated oils, to products decades ago because they were seen as a healthier substitute than saturated fats such butter and were an economical way to maintain food texture and flavor, according to NBC's diet and nutrition editor Madelyn Fernstrom.

The FDA decision "comes from decades of research on the effects of artificial trans fats on heart health," said Fernstrom. "While estimates of dietary intake of trans-fats among Americans has decreased nearly 75 percent in about a decade, there remain concerns about the inclusion of any trans-fats in foods.
The FDA has previously estimated that the average American eats 4.7 pounds of trans fats a year. The American Heart Association recommends that people should consume fewer than 2 grams of trans fats a day.