Bakers, listen up. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced its latest mission to wipe out all industrially-produced trans fats -- a mainstay in the bakery industry -- by 2023.
In the United States, this sounds like a mission possible. In 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration gave the country's food industry a three-year deadline to eliminate artificial trans fats, a major contributor to heart disease in America, from the food supply. In fact, from 2006-8, according to one estimate, the amount of trans fats in food in North America was cut by half. By 2015, the US Grocery Manufacturers Association said trans fat had already been reduced by 85%. Back then, the initiative was expected to save thousands of lives a year.
The WHO's latest assignment to rid foods of trans fats -- believed to increase heart-disease risk by 21% and deaths by 28% -- in five years would help prevent 500,000 deaths per year from cardiovascular disease.
"Why should our children have such an unsafe ingredient in their foods?" WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
In this Wednesday, July 26, 2017 photo, donuts destined for a Phish concert are fried, at Federal Donuts in Philadelphia. Doughnuts are everywhere in Phish's "Baker's Dozen" 13-show residency at Madison Square Garden, which kicked off last week and lasts until Aug. 6. From the tickets to a huge mural to the thousands of Federal Donuts being given out to fans each night. The band is even working each night's custom flavor into its setlists. Photo: AP
Prof Visith Chavasit of the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University, who has conducted research and surveys on trans fatty-acid contamination in food products, said Thailand should likewise see no difficulty wiping out trans fats from the menu. Yet to do so requires a huge collaboration from food manufacturers.
"The main issue here is bakery products. Manufacturers could replace trans fat with the use of oil mixture. It's a technique called oil blending. But it requires research and development before such a new oil formula could bring about satisfying results," said Visith, former director of the Institute of Nutrition.
In the food world, there are two kinds of fats generally known by most consumers: saturated and unsaturated. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature while the unsaturated fat's molecules keep them liquid at room temperature (think soybean oil, olive oil, sunflower oil). Saturated fats are naturally found in animal fats such as milk and lard as well as plant oils of tropical zones, such as coconut oil and palm oil. Saturated fats have been used for deep-frying in countries around the world for centuries.
"In Western countries, saturated fats like lard and butter are commonly used in fried food and bakery products because the fats can make it crisp, less rancid, and have nice mouthfeel," said Visith. "In tropical countries like Thailand, however, we mainly use coconut oil for crispiness because we grow coconuts in the area."
At some point in time there were attempts in Western countries to find a healthier oil to replace saturated animal fats, as they believed such fats are high in cholesterol, which is detrimental to health if consumed long-term.
The industry then came up with a technique called hydrogenation, meaning hydrogen is added to unsaturated fats like vegetable oils to make them more solid and stable and to give them a higher smoking point when used for deep frying. Such hydrogenation is used to produce so-called "partially hydrogenated oils" -- the main source of trans fat in the world -- and has since become widespread in the food industry, especially in the making of bakery products, for being cheap, tasty and offering a longer shelf life.
"Using trans fats in the bakery industry has become a tradition in the West. Thailand has adopted all these bakery recipes, especially the use of butter, margarine and shortening, making trans fat a major ingredient in our bakery products."
Nutritionally, trans fats are known to cause what Visith describes as a "double effect" -- the rise of low-density ipoprotein (LDL), or bad cholesterol, as well as the lowering of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or good cholesterol. In a nutshell, all this puts consumers at a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease, which claims the lives of 17.7 million people every year, according to WHO statistics.
Last year's report from the Bureau of Non-Communicable Diseases showed a sharp escalation in the number of heart disease-related deaths among Thais. In 2015, almost 20,000 Thais were reported to have died from coronary heart diseases, a big rise from only around 15,400 in 2012. According to data from the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board, Thailand has an average medical expense of around 7 billion baht per year from heart disease alone.
All this explains why the WHO -- apart from the wiping-out mission -- also issued its latest recommendation on trans-fat intake just last month. Apart from recommending adults and children consume a maximum of 10% of their daily calories in the form of saturated fat, the WHO wants to curbs the amount of trans fats to only 1% of daily calorie intake, which, according to Visith, equates to only 2.2g per day.
Several food manufacturers in Thailand have pledged their support to make the country, if not the world, free from the hazardous fats. Thailand-born Daddy Dough, for example, has produced doughnuts without using trans fats in the production process. Tesco Lotus also announced last month that all Tesco bakery products now contain zero trans fats following a recipe adjustment.
The situation has been more worrying in many Western countries, where, said Visith, the bakery products might contain up to 30% of trans fats. But good news is that some countries in fact understand it is crucial to have no trans fats at all. Several states in America, for example, have geared towards trans fat-free bakeries. New York has banned trans fats in restaurants since 2006. Hospitals in New York counties with trans-fat bans reported a 6% drop in heart attacks and strokes three years after the law was put in place. In 2008, then California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the so-called Trans-Fat Bill, requiring restaurants to reduce the amount of trans fat in their margarine, oils and shortening to less than half-a-gramme per serving by Jan 1, 2010.
A Milky-Way chocolate bar is deep-fried in oil free of trans fats at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis. Photo: AP
In Europe, Denmark pioneered the banning of industrially produced trans fats in food in 2003, leading to other European governments determining to protect their citizens from the perilous ingredient.
"The thing is that, in Thailand, some food manufacturers refuse to adjust their recipes for fear [that such an adjustment] would change how their food tastes," Visith said. This, he added, has led to the Ministry of Public Health planning to implement a law banning partially hydrogenated fats in all foods, as well as the import of goods containing more than 0.5g per serving of trans fat. Such a law will be enforced in the very near future, said Visith, who is also a food-education expert for the National Food Committee.
"After the implementation, the use of partially hydrogenated fats in food might put manufacturers in jail," he said.
While awareness among bakers and food producers is key, consumer education is equally paramount, said Visith. Stressing the danger of trans fats alone can be misleading, and is likely to make consumers overlook the negative health impact of saturated fats. Personally, Visith does not agree with the idea of highlighting only trans fats in product labels.
"While we encourage the zero-trans-fat scheme, we must not fail to also underline the limit of saturated fats -- because they, too, are dangerous," he said.
