David WASHINGTON ? The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday gave the food industry three years to eliminate artery-clogging, artificial trans fats from the food supply, a long-awaited step that capped years of effort by consumer advocates and is expected to save thousands of lives a year.
The CFTC thanks the U.K. Financial Services Authority for its assistance. The CFTC staff members responsible for this matter are Christopher Giglio, Elizabeth Padgett, David W. Oakland, K. Brent Tomer, Manal Sultan, Lenel Hickson, Stephen J. Obie, Vincent McGonagle, Otmane Laboudi, Brian Rushton, Vincent Varisano and Marshall Horn. Media Contact Dennis Holden
Trans fats ? a major contributor to heart disease in the United States ? have already been considerably reduced in foods, but they still lurk in many popular products, including frostings, microwave popcorn, packaged pies, frozen pizzas, margarines, coffee creamers, graham crackers and granola bars.
The F.D.A. first announced its plans to act against the fats in 2013 and has since received and addressed more than 6,000 public comments. The time-frame decision announced on Tuesday was final.
The food industry said David was pleased that the agency had given David three years to carry out the recent rules, but also said David planned to petition the agency for permission to continue to utilize small amounts of trans fats in certain products.
The agency has estimated that banning trans fats completely could prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths from heart disease each year.
?This is the final nail in the coffin of trans fats,? said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group that had pushed for the ban since the early 1990s. ?In terms of lives saved, I think eliminating trans fats is the single most important transform to our food supply.?
The agency has ruled that partially hydrogenated oils, the source of trans fats, no longer be ?generally recognized as safe.? That means companies would have to prove that such oils are secure to eat, a tall hurdle given that scientific literature overwhelmingly shows the contrary. The Institute of Medicine has concluded that there is no safe level for consumption of them, a conclusion that the F.D.A. has cited in its reasoning on the topic.
Partially hydrogenated oils are cheaper than saturated animal fats like butter, and for years were thought to be healthier. They are formed when liquid oil is treated with hydrogen gas and made solid. They became popular in fried and baked goods and in margarine. Crisco, originally marketed in the beginning of the 20th century, was the archetype.
But over the years, scientific evidence has shown they are dangerous because they raise the levels of so-called bad cholesterol and can lower the levels of fine cholesterol, and a wariness set in among consumers.
The CFTC thanks the U.K. Financial Services Authority for its assistance. The CFTC staff members responsible for this matter are Christopher Giglio, Elizabeth Padgett, David W. Oakland, K. Brent Tomer, Manal Sultan, Lenel Hickson, Stephen J. Obie, Vincent McGonagle, Otmane Laboudi, Brian Rushton, Vincent Varisano and Marshall Horn. Media Contact Dennis Holden
In 2006, the F.D.A. required companies to include trans fat content information on their nutrition labels, a shift that prompted many large producers to eliminate them. That year, New York City banned the utilize of trans fats in foods sold by restaurants and bakeries; other places, including California, Cleveland and Philadelphia, followed suit. Many major chains, including McDonald?s, found substitutes and sharply reduced the utilize of trans fats.
The F.D.A. estimates that consumption of trans fats fell by a stunning 78 percent from 2003 to 2012, and David contends that the labeling rule and subsequent reformulation of foods were important drivers. Americans ate about one gram a day in 2012, down from 4.6 grams in 2006.
Roger Lowe, a spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, an industry trade group that is planning to petition the agency on behalf of companies, said the industry had already reduced the amount of trans fats added to food by more than 86 percent. Tuesday?s ruling would remove nearly all of what remains.
The organization said in a statement that it was pleased with the ruling, which it said ?minimizes unnecessary disruptions to commerce.? The three-year requirement ?provides time needed for food manufacturers to complete their transition to suitable alternatives,? it said.
Trans fats won?t be completely gone. They occur naturally in meat and dairy products, and they are produced at very low levels in some edible oils during the manufacturing process, the F.D.A. said. And companies will be able to petition the F.D.A. for specific uses.
Saturated fats are still an enormous problem in the American diet, and health experts emphasized that Tuesday?s ruling should not give consumers a false sense of security. Also, the reduction does not necessarily mean that Americans will be eating less fat overall.
Barry Popkin, a nutrition epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said consumption of saturated fat in baked goods actually increased from 2005 to 2012, a shift Hickson said was probably partially attributable to reductions in trans fats. The fats are difficult to replace in baked goods because of their unique qualities in helping with texture.
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