Prepared meals, pizzas, pastries, biscuits… United States, manufactured foods are full of trans fatty acids, industrial oils used to give food consistency. In all, out of 84,000 supermarket products screened by the non-governmental organization (NGO) EWGmore than 27% contain trans fatty acids.
While some trans fatty acids are naturally present in the stomachs of ruminants (cows, goats, sheep, etc.), the vast majority are manufactured industrially from unsaturated vegetable oils. However, if they are useful as stabilizers and preservatives in industrial foods, trans fatty acids have no nutritional value. Conversely, they are accused of increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, by increasing the level of bad cholesterol.
Thanks to a large database, the American NGO Environmental Working Group was able to see the extent of the use of these harmful fatty acids in industrial food. Thus, 27% of prepared foods contain it, and 10% are likely to contain it. Croissants, popcorn and frozen pies are the industrial foods that contain the most.
However, if trans fatty acids are indeed part of the composition of products, only 2% of the foods identified indicate their presence on their label. Worse still, 10% of products intended for children claiming “zero trans fatty acids” did contain these industrial oils at 0.5 to 1%.
The Food and drug administration (FDA) specifies that the consumption oftrans fatty acids nevertheless went from 4.6 to 1 g per day between 2003 and 2012 in the United States. In November 2013, the FDA banned the use of trans fatty acids in processed foods, which prevented 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths from coronary heart disease.
In France, the National Health Security Agency (Anses) refers to the recommendations of the World Health Organization. Although it does not formally prohibit the use of trans fatty acids, it recalls that “the presence in foods of trans fatty acids of technological origin must be limited to a techno-functional interest”. It also encourages efforts to reduce their use, both in human and animal food, in order to reduce the risk of exposure.
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