By: Sarah Romero
Harvard Law and Policy Review Online
We seem to have finally reached and surpassed a critical mass in the trans fat debate. Trans fat has been all over the news lately, spurred on by lawsuits and New York City’s highly publicized ban on artificial trans fat that went into effect on December 5, 2006. But really, the trans fat debate has been going on for almost twenty years. Only recently have consumer and public interest groups been successful in getting the word out to the public: trans fat is BAD. So bad, in fact, that in July 2002 the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine concluded that the only safe level of trans fat in the diet is “zero.“
Trans fat is a monounsaturated fat that occurs naturally in low levels in milk and beef, but 80 percent of the trans fat Americans consume is from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. The hydrogenation process creates an artificial “Frankenfat” through an industrial process that causes the hydrogen molecules in unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats to switch over from one side of the carbon chain to the other. Normally unsaturated fatty acids are in a liquid state. But hydrogenation causes the unsaturated fatty acids to solidify at room temperature. The inexpensive oils are attractive to food manufacturers because they have a longer shelf life and longer fry life than other oils. That makes them useful for fried foods like French fries, donuts, and taco shells. And they give baked goods like cookies, crackers, and pies the texture that previously came from lard…read more
Hydrogenated Oil 