Two stories today on trans fats

From Associated Press

Two years ago Denmark declared war on killer fat, making it illegal for any food to have more than 2 percent transfats. Offenders now face hefty fines — or even prison terms. The result? Today hardly anyone notices the difference.

The french fries are still crispy. The pastries are still scrumptious. And the fried chicken is still tasty.

Denmark's experience offers a hopeful example for places like Canada and the U.S. state of New York, which are considering setting limits on the dangerous artery-clogging fats.

Even consuming less than five grams of transfat — the amount found in one piece of fried chicken and a side of french fries — a day has been linked with a 25 percent increased risk of heart disease.

"No other fat at these low levels of intake, has such harmful effects," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist at Harvard's School of Public Health.

For Danes like Troels Nyborg Andersen, the government's decision means he feels less guilty about his fast-food habit.

"I know transfats are bad, but you don't think about that when you're hungry," said the 27-year-old Copenhagen native, chomping a hamburger. "It's good that the Danish government got rid of transfats so that I don't have to worry about it."

That was the rationale that motivated the transfat ban.

"We wanted to protect people so that they would not even have to know what transfat was," said Dr. Steen Stender, one of the leading Danish experts who lobbied for the anti-transfat law.

Stender and other health experts say Denmark's transfat ban should be adopted worldwide.

"There's no reason it cannot be done elsewhere," he said, explaining that the food in Denmark is not markedly different from food anywhere else. "If you removed transfat from the planet, the only people who would feel the difference are the people who sell the transfat."

Steve - you go Denmark!

From the BBC

The Food and Drink Federation (UK) has said hundreds of well-known brands, such as Horlicks, Mars and Weetabix, are being reformulated to eliminate trans fats.

The FDF polled 20 top food and drink manufacturers, asking about their position on trans fats.

Of those, 11 companies came back with details while the other nine either had no trans fats in their products or did not release details.

Based on these responses, the FDF has put a retail value of £1.5 billion on the products being reformulated.

Julian Hunt of the FDF said many companies had "dramatically" cut trans fats over the past two years.

"The industry is committed to reducing the level of trans fats to as low as is technically possible and has been actively reducing these levels.

Steve - this is good to see. We are seeing the same thing in the US. Although, restaurants in the US are still exempt from showing the ingredients in their food and this practice needs to be stopped.