New York City begins hearings on trans fat ban

New York City's Board of Health held its first public hearing Monday on a proposal to make New York the first U.S. city to ban restaurants from serving food containing artificial trans fats.

Restaurant industry representatives, who said they would need time to put the ban into practice, questioned whether there would be an adequate supply of alternative oils available.

The average American eats 4.7 pounds of trans fatty acids a year, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. New York City health officials say these trans fats are so unhealthy they belong in the same category as food spoiled by rodent droppings.

New York eateries are now scrambling for ways to get trans fats out of their food. Invented in the early 1900s, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil was initially believed to be a healthy substitute for natural fats like butter or lard. It was also cheaper, performed better under high heat and had a longer shelf life. Today, it is used for deep frying and as a shortening in baked goods such as cookies and crackers.

Ironically, many fast food companies became dependent on hydrogenated oil about 15 years ago when they were pressured by health groups to do something about saturated fat.

McDonald's emptied its fryers of beef tallow in 1990 and filled them with what was then thought to be "heart healthy" partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Raise bad cholesterol

Trans fats significantly raise the level of so-called "bad" cholesterol in the blood, clogging arteries and causing heart disease. Researchers at Harvard's School of Public Health estimated that trans fats contribute to 30,000 U.S. deaths a year.

"This is something we'd like to dismiss from our food supply," said Dr. Robert H. Eckel, immediate past president of the American Heart Association.

Wendy's, the national burger chain, has already switched to a zero-trans fat oil. McDonald's announced in 2003 that it intended to do so, but has yet to follow through.

In Canada companies are required to list trans fats, along with other nutritional information on all pre-packaged foods and drinks but restaurants and bakeries do not have to disclose any nutritional information, including whether their products contain trans fats.  

In 2004, Health Canada appointed a task force to investigate finding alternatives to trans fats. Pat Martin, an NDP MP who passed a 2004 motion asking Parliament to enact an all-encompassing trans fat ban, criticized Health Canada for not acting on the task force's report. He said public demand is overwhelming and industry has shown a willingness to change.

Martin dismissed critics who say the government shouldn't intervene in the trans fat debate.

"Nobody is saying that you can't have your doughnuts or your french fries. All we're saying is don't put poison in our food," he told CBC.

Grocery stores not affected

If approved, New York's ban would only affect restaurants, not grocery stores, and wouldn't extend beyond the city limits. But experts said the city's food service industry, with 24,600 establishments, is so large that any rule change is likely to ripple nationwide.

"It's going to be the trendsetter for the entire country," said Suzanne Vieira, director of the culinary nutrition program at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.

Richard Lipsky, a spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, said many New York eatery owners rely on ingredients prepared elsewhere, and aren't always aware whether the foods they sell contain trans fats. Consumer reaction remains to be seen.

New Jersey state Sen. Ellen Karcher said her office was flooded with threatening phone calls after she proposed a similar trans fat ban in early October. A proposed ban in Chicago was ridiculed by some as government paternalism run amok.

Dr. Leslie Cho, medical director for preventative cardiology and rehabilitation at the Cleveland Clinic, said people might be less upset if they knew how bad trans fats are for the body.

"I don't know anything about politics, but what I tell my patients is that they should not eat any type of artificial trans fat," she said.

Do they listen?

"The majority of the people I deal with have had stents or bypass surgery," she said. "They are kind of motivated to change their lives."

© The Canadian Press, 2006