The whole world is waging war against trans fats. The city of New York has gone the whole hog and will ban the city’s 20,000 or so restaurants from serving any food containing trans fatty acids. The ban applies not only to big fast food chains like McDonalds, KFC and Dunkin' Donuts, which have been mired in controversy over trans fats for years, but also neighborhood cafes. The New York City Board of Health unanimously passed the ban on Sept. 26, to be finalized in December after public hearings.


It will be introduced step by step. First, restaurants are banned from using more than 0.5 grams of oil, margarine and shortenings per serving until July next year, then all kinds of food prepared in their kitchen including bread, cake, potato chips and salad dressing become subject to the ban. These products often contain the artificial semi-solid trans fats, which increase their shelf life and reduce the need for refrigeration. City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden says trans fats contained in food are invisible but dangerous just as lead in paint, which New York city banned in the 60s, and they can be substituted. He said no one will miss trans fats when they are gone.

New York is not alone. Chicago is also seeking to ban the evil cholesterol bombs, and the Food and Drug Administration made it compulsory to tell the amount of partially hydrogenated oils on food labels in January this year. KFC was sued by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) last June for using trans fats in its chicken dishes. Canada made labeling compulsory last December, and Denmark even introduced prison terms of up to two years for violations of a ban on distribution and sale of food where trans fats make up more than 2 percent of contained fats.

The World Health Organization and the American Heart Association (AHA) recommend that trans fats should not make up more than 1 percent of total calories you take a day. AHA says the biggest reason for cardiovascular diseases is the intake of saturated fat and trans fats. But it says trans fats are worse than saturated fat because they raise the body's "bad” cholesterol and reduce the "good" cholesterol.

The Korea Food & Drug Administration in September announced revised food labeling standards which make it compulsory to show the amount of trans fats in processed food such as bread, candy, chocolate, noodles and beverages starting from Dec. 1 next year. “We completed an investigation of some 500 kinds of food including snacks and fast food children enjoy last year before implementing the measure,” said the director in charge of nutritional evaluation at the KFDA Park Hye-kyung. “We notified each food company of the result and are looking at whether they are improving. Inspections will continue until artificially produced trans fats are gone completely.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )