Trans Fat Fight Claims Butter as a Victim

Wholesale bakers are being forced to substitute processed fats like palm oil and margarine for good old-fashioned butter because of the small amounts of natural trans fat butter contains.

Some researchers believe that the trans fat that occurs naturally in butter, meat, milk and cheese might actually be healthy. But to satisfy companies that want to call their foods completely free of trans fats, bakers like Mr. Reich are altering serving sizes, cutting back on butter and in some cases using ingredients like trans fat-free margarine.

Starbucks, which sells millions of baked goods a day at its 8,700 United States stores, has asked all of the bakers who provide its pastries to eliminate any trace of trans fat by the end of the year. The change has already happened in Washington and Oregon. California bakers are reworking recipes this month to try to meet a Starbucks deadline.

“For us, it’s easier for the customer to walk in and see zero grams trans fat than zero grams artificially created trans fat,” said Brandon Borman, a company spokesman.

The focus on removing trans fat has centered on the kind created by partial hydrogenation, which turns liquid oil into a solid fat like shortening that adds creaminess and shelf life to commercial baked goods and, for home cooks, makes a flaky pie crust. Trans fat is also created when certain inexpensive and sturdy oils are heated in deep-fat fryers.

The F.D.A. decided not to distinguish between the two fats, and requires all trans fat amounts to be labeled if there is a half a gram or more per serving. The half-gram mark is in part because it would be impossible to rid the nation’s diet of the natural trans fat in meats and dairy products.

Bonnie - this is a problem. The focus of the trans fat campaign was aimed at the artificial kind, such as hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated. The natural trans fat in meat and dairy products, called conjugated linoleic acid, is healthy in small amounts. Starbucks made a mistake with the "0 trans fat" policy. I know a baker who works with them could not use butter in reformulating his product because of this rule. The New York ban did it correctly: they prohibited artifical trans fat, not natural.