TFAs, The Food Industry's Trojan Horse on Your Table

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TFAs, The Food Industry's " Trojan Horse " on Your Table

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092906I.shtml

 

By Sherwood Ross

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

Friday 29 September 2006

 

If you're thinking about a useful holiday gift for a teenager,

for $6.99 you can give the invaluable Trans Fats: The Hidden Killer

in Our Food (Pocket Books), by Judith Shaw, whose no-holds-barred

introduction begins, " This is the story of a killer ingredient tucked

into most of the food that you, your family, and most other Americans

eat ... "

 

This 175-page paperback is an urgent read for teens because, Shaw

writes, " Moving into adolescence with their own disposable dollars,

children become the principal consumers of foods with hydrogenated

vegetable oils, snacking away at the cellophane packages and fast

foods that have become a thirty billion dollar American habit. "

 

" Consuming foods with hydrogenated oils (chips, cookies,

crackers, muffins, donuts, candy, fast food) ... has become a

national pastime, a cultural institution, " Shaw argues, noting the

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that " fully half of

packaged cereals, cold or hot, contain partially hydrogenated

vegetable oils. "

 

Indeed, USDA says TFAs are found in 40 percent of the food on

grocery store shelves today! The good news, though, is that since

last January 1st, the FDA ordered TFAs to be listed on food package

labels, so at least you've got a sporting chance to avoid them.

 

What do TFAs do to you? As Jeffrey Aron, MD, of the University of

California, San Francisco, puts it in his foreward to Shaw's book,

they cause people to " develop a state of inflammation that creates a

cascade of metabolic horrors with results that can include insulin

resistance, obesity, heart disease, autoimmune disease, and

depression. " Indeed, 60,800,000 Americans didn't just develop some

form of cardiovascular disease without a little help from the

processed food industry - and it's increasingly seen among children.

 

If those figures don't unsettle you, Shaw points to long-term

Harvard medical studies asserting that " the risk of cardiovascular

disease correlates to the consumption of TFAs: that the people who

eat food with the most partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are

those most likely to develop heart disease. "

 

By eliminating partially hydrogenated vegetable oils from the

American diet, at least 30,000 deaths from heart disease and an

additional 100,000 deaths per year from related vascular disease

might be prevented annually, writes Shaw, former long-time

educational director of The Family Institute of Berkeley, in

California.

 

That's catching up to deaths from cigarette smoking, which wipes

out 440,000 Americans annually. (If Osama bin Laden wanted to do a

real number on us, he'd get himself a consulting gig with the

cigarette lobby in Washington.)

 

What foods contain TFAs? They are ubiquitous, as manufacturers

stuff them into products to extend shelf life. Shaw warns: " Any

package that lists partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (or soybean,

canola, coconut, palm or safflower oil) in its ingredients contains

TFAs. "

 

TFAs may be doubly camouflaged on some packages

as " shortening, " " vegetable shortening, " or " hardened vegetable oil. "

Any baked good of packaged food with margarine in it or one that

suggests the use of stick margarine to prepare it is, or becomes,

full of TFAs, the author writes.

 

Among the " Worst Offender Foods " Shaw finds are:

 

Baked goods such as cakes, cookies, breads, donuts, frosting mixes,

muffins, pastries, pies and ready-to-bake pizza crusts. If you're

thinking of snacking on fast foods, watch out for flour and fried

tortillas, French fries, donuts, brownies, and chicken nuggets, as

well as breakfast cakes such as cinnamon buns and Danish.

 

Even " the baby and toddler food sold in boxes and jars may have

them, " Shaw writes. " Arrowroot Cookies from Gerber and Nabisco's

Zwieback Toast and Animal Crackers have them ... They're in a

substantial number of the pastries at all 4,126 Starbucks across the

nation. "

 

If you want to avoid TFAs, it's a good idea to pass up the frozen

food supermarket display with its breaded foods like potato nuggets

and fish sticks, burritos, frozen dinners, pizza, pot pies, pot

stickers, and quiches.

 

TFAs are also commonly found in margarine, nondairy creamers, peanut

butter, vegetable oil shortenings, frosting mixes, butter-like

spreads, dessert toppings, gravy mixes, instant soups, dips for

chips, roasted or fried nuts, pretzels, peanut butter crackers and

like snacks, and those egg substitutes whose consumption you thought

might be healthy for your heart.

" Most stick margarines are full of TFAs, and some of the tubs

have them as well. Snacks like Quaker Cereal Bars ... Lunchables, and

Oreos have them. Granola bars ... take-out salads, apple pies, and

stir-fries " have them. And, get this, " They are in the sugar-free

candy made expressly for diabetics, " as well as nondairy coffee

creamer and Halloween treats! Shaw goes on to write, " Even some name

brand ice creams, like Ben & Jerry's, have them. " " Orville

Redenbacher 'quality' popcorn uses them " as do most other microwave

brands.

 

If you can think of a reason why TFAs should not be banned

altogether from the grocery shelves, let me know. For as Dr. Oscar

London, author of Kill as Few Patients as Possible, warns on Shaw's

cover blurb: " Trans fats are a time bomb ticking in every one of us.

For your sake, and that of your children, you must read this book. "