Why Orangutans Are Mourning the Trans Fat Ban in USA

What is indisputably good for our hearts might not be great for the orangutans in Borneo or tigers in Sumatra.

The US FDA has put a curb on trans fats. By 2018, food manufacturers will not be able to add partially hydrogenated oils, “PHO”, the number one source of trans fats in packed foods.

This is a major public health victory and can save 20,000 Americans from getting heart attacks and 7000 deaths a year.

The ban was in the works from 2013 when the US FDA took out trans fats from the “generally recognised as safe category”. At that time, New York mandated popular fast food chains like McDonald’s and KFC to stop the use of trans fat laded oils in deep frying.

Trans fats are your heart’s no1 enemy and they are everywhere. They maintain the flakiness of baked goods, the crunchiness of biscuits, the creaminess of packed frostings, cookies, popcorn, almost anything you can think of is either fried in trans fats or baked with it.

The big worry is that food manufacturers might find clever ways to still use these unhealthy fats because it maintains the texture of the food, which is what these fats are really used for.

How This Ban Will Kill More Orangutans

What’s a boon for the heart might not be one for the big apes in Sumatra.

Trans fats have been on the US FDA radar since 2006. A decade old research in the US, found that the “No Trans Fat” label attracted 70% more consumers in supermarkets. So most packed food companies have voluntarily been replacing trans fats with palm oil. According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, trans fats in the American diet have drastically come down by 80% since 2003, to roughly 1gm per day.

Given the natural decline, many are scratching their heads about this move by the US FDA. Why suddenly ban trans fats when food companies are already eliminating their use?

Now palm oil which comes cheap is heavily laded with saturated fats, and a profitable crop too. It is extracted from the fruit of palm oil trees which grows in the same area as tropical, dense, rain forests, the natural habitat of orangutans.

The problem is that more than 85% of the world’s palm oil supply comes from Malaysia. Did you know that as many as 300 football fields worth of rain forests are cleared every hour to make way for profitable palm oil plantations?

When this happens, the orangutans and other animals that live there, die as a result of homelessness.

Last week, you may have read the news of the French Ecology Minister asking for a boycott of everyone’s favourite Nutella for its use of palm oil. But really, why single out Nutella? From cleaning products to gourmet soaps, cookies, cakes and crackers, and other shelf stabled products, all use palm oil generously.

Why India Needs to Wage a War Against Trans Fats

4 Indians die of a heart attack every minute. A fourth of these deaths are in people below the age of 40.

The Maggi muddle has highlighted how the labelling laws can be exploited in the country, there is no guarantee that the breakfast cereal flashing a “No Trans Fat” tag, might not be giving you high cholesterol and raising your risk of diabetes.

Unlike Americans, India has a very trans fat rich diet. Vanaspati, a partially hydrogenated oil, which is cheap, is abundantly used in the samosa and the chola bhatura, the chaat you eat on the streets, the namkeens with your morning chai, bakery products and a million other fried and processed foods.

While the Maggi controversy is still piping hot, the FSSAI should urgently look at getting street foods under some sort of a regulation. By its own admission, in 2012, the Maharashtra FDA found 70% of the loose oil sold in Mumbai substandard or contaminated.

Maggi is banned but the street food full of trans fats which can kill you are not even on the FDA radar. Go figure.