We're Trans Fat Free, But Now What?

For years, my husband and I have been trying our best to avoid trans fats. We have been reading food labels closely and shunning all foods containing partially hydrogenated oil. Discussions with friends and family members about the topic and my vehement stance against trans fats have resulted in a lot of interest and just as many rolled eyes. After what seems like eternity of thinking that the ingredient lists were never going to change, I'm so happy to see a drastic change of events.

Large food corporations, the government, the media and the medical and scientific communities are now backing the detriments of trans fats. Entire cities - New York and Philadelphia - have passed a mandate that restaurants are not allowed to cook with oils containing trans fats. Whole Foods has a company policy that they will not sell anything in their stores that contains any partially hydrogenated oil, or trans fats. Trader Joe's is working toward eliminating the same (however, I have found that certain frozen "chinese-style" stir fries, a couple cookie varieties and panko bread crumbs still contain trans fat so keep vigilant. I should note that upon confrontation of management on several occassions, they assure me that, while there is no imminent company policy changes being made like Whole Foods, they are working toward removing it from all products.)

So, what now? Well, in my opinion, the fight is not over on two fronts.

1. The government is allowing companies to include less than .5g of trans fat per serving and claim that there are "no trans fats" on the product packaging (most of the time in a very prominent manner on the front of the packaging and in the Nutrition Facts grid on the back). I see this as deceptive and am concerned that folks who don't know what ingredients to look for (e.g. partially hydrogenated oils) may not know that these products still contain trans fats. It's super-scary to think that people could be eating more than one serving at a time thinking that they are safe with this "no trans fat" claim on the packaging, but in reality be ingesting a couple grams of the stuff.

2. Now that we've removed partially hydrogenated oil from foods, what do we replace it with? I've observed that most respectable companies will use poly- or mono-unsaturated fats such as olive, canola, sunflower, or safflower oil, but some are not. Some are replacing trans fats in hydrogenated oils with saturated fats in pure oils such as palm or coconut oils. The New York Times ran an article that talks about this very topic.

Bottom line is that we all still need to be cautious about what we eat. And, when you eat out, you are taking a chance that your food will contain trans fats or saturated fats.

For more information about trans fats, visit Ban Trans Fats and Wikipedia's Trans Fats entry.

Welcome to Love Good Food!

The food reviews in my head are finally coming alive! Thanks for checking out this new blog featuring reviews of natural and organic foods found at your local market or at specialty stores such as Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, etc.

If you've ever wanted to ask other shoppers in the market, "have you tried this?" and "did you like it?" this is the place for you.

A sucker for good marketing copy and a pretty picture on food packaging, I am willing to try anything that I can convince myself is trending toward healthy (a big NO to anything with partially hydrogenated oils and it takes something really special with corn syrup to get into my pantry). Some might call these convenience foods, snacks, or trash, but most of the time we call them tasty. Now, with that said, I am a firm believer in cooking from scratch and believe that the majority of dinners I serve my family should be made from fresh ingredients. But, truthfully, we all know that packaged items come in handy and I feel comfortable knowing that the items I choose are made with real ingredients, not a two-inch-long list of chemicals I can't pronounce.

My job here is to share my great finds with you, and I hope you will share yours with me.