Trans-fats, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, tend to thicken other oil and extend shelf life but also seem to cause health issues. They provide no nutritional benefit. Should they be banned?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10369198.stm

Of course they shouldnt be banned.

If people were educated properly then there wouldnt be a need to even consider banning anything because the industry would stop using trans-fats to pad everything out as no-one would buy things that contain them.

Banning them is akin to treating the symptoms rather than treating the disease.

Disagree with ChrisH.

Yes they should ban them.

People cant be expected to understand everything about such complicated stuff. I had no clue what a trans fat is until I read about them. Im not a dietitian.

Ban them if they serve no purpose other than to increase profits, such as thickening stuff. (A la meat pumped full of water etc)

If they have valid use, I think it should be carefully considered. For instance if they increase shelf life of products drastically, and in doing so they decrease wastage considerably, this is quite important. Of course if there were products that prolonged shelf life with no harmful effects they should be used instead.

ban them, they do nothing except damage peoples health.

Quote from: SamDisagree with ChrisH.

Yes they should ban them.

People cant be expected to understand everything about such complicated stuff. I had no clue what a trans fat is until I read about them. Im not a dietitian.

Yes, there are too many instances and examples of things exactly like this such as pumping more salt and water than is necessary into food. I cant and dont expect to have to review everything I buy in the shops to see if it has something detrimental to my health in it when you assume manufacturers will take responsibility for what garbage they are putting into food.

I couldnt disagree more with you all. Its not complicated, hard, or even time consuming (I suffer from a food allergy so have to do it all of the time). Checking what sh*te you are shovelling into your mouth is your responsibility.

Ban it, its not like banning it is a bad thing, yes people shouldnt be so stupid when shovelling their fat faces, but why not get rid of it!

Is it transfats they have banned in the states? or was that something else?... actually think it was

Quote from: Chris HI couldnt disagree more with you all. Its not complicated, hard, or even time consuming (I suffer from a food allergy so have to do it all of the time). Checking what sh*te you are shovelling into your mouth is your responsibility.

As soon as it is something prepackaged or effectively cooked for you the responsibility shifts a great deal - this isnt like buying fresh veg and ingredients, what were effectively talking about with some prepackaged food and fast food is not much different to eating a meal brought out to you in a restaurant. Packaging doesnt always give a full or clear picture, and weighing up gram for gram what youre eating in the day does take time. If there were bans on things like this that clearly offer nothing but detriment to your health then it can only be a good thing.

Just because you are unfortunate enough to have to check all your food for things you are allergic to does not mean we all should have to - if your allergy is not clearly recognised on food packaging then I think you should be kicking up a fuss. Shopping takes enough time as is for me without spending extra time worrying about everything in the food im buying.

Quote from: Clockd 0Ne

Quote from: Chris HI couldnt disagree more with you all. Its not complicated, hard, or even time consuming (I suffer from a food allergy so have to do it all of the time). Checking what sh*te you are shovelling into your mouth is your responsibility.

As soon as it is something prepackaged or effectively cooked for you the responsibility shifts a great deal - this isnt like buying fresh veg and ingredients, what were effectively talking about with some prepackaged food and fast food is not much different to eating a meal brought out to you in a restaurant. Packaging doesnt always give a full or clear picture, and weighing up gram for gram what youre eating in the day does take time. If there were bans on things like this that clearly offer nothing but detriment to your health then it can only be a good thing.

Just because you are unfortunate enough to have to check all your food for things you are allergic to does not mean we all should have to - if your allergy is not clearly recognised on food packaging then I think you should be kicking up a fuss. Shopping takes enough time as is for me without spending extra time worrying about everything in the food im buying.

Id argue that if you care about what youre eating then you should read the label. Allergies are irrelevant if you give a damn about what youre actually consuming.

If Im completely honest I can see the advantages of them banning trans-fats, youd have to be an idiot not to. However I dont buy the argument that people dont have the time to read labels or are too stupid to understand the labels. It smacks of laziness and people pretending to care because they are being told that they should by the media.

You cant complain you dont have the time to read labels and then also pretend that you care about what youre eating. You mention that when you buy something pre-packaged or pre-cooked then you shift the responsibility onto someone else. Thank you for proving my point so eloquently. If you care about what youre eating then take back the responsibility and stop trying to shift the blame onto the companies producing the food.

You dont expect to have to read the labels to make sure the product doesnt contain anthrax, cyanide, arsenic etc. If they think this chemical will cause detrimental effects to all that eat it (albeit gradual effects over a long time of excessive consumption), if there are alternatives it should surely be ok to show it to the banhammer. If the global populace was allergic to whatever you are allergic to, youd expect it to get banned too if everyone would suffer from eating products containing it?

But Im not the one shifting responsibility, the responsibility is theirs in the first place in the same way you wouldnt expect to find glass or poisons in the food. Reading a label wouldnt stop you getting BSE and you cant guarantee everything that goes into the food is what you expect, they cant even guarantee foods to be nut free half the time. But if anyone was really that worried they wouldnt eat prepackaged food at all. Im far more inclined to take the risk and purchase food like that in the expectation that its not going to slowly kill me because they have responsibility to produce nutritious and safe food. Tightening legislation and practice on producing food is only a good thing, I really cant understand why you would want to dismiss the producers responsibility. Everyone should be watching what they eat as a matter of fact, but not studying the ingredients list in detail for every product, thats an unnecessary extreme to me.

Quote from: Clockd 0NeBut Im not the one shifting responsibility, the responsibility is theirs in the first place in the same way you wouldnt expect to find glass or poisons in the food. Reading a label wouldnt stop you getting BSE and you cant guarantee everything that goes into the food is what you expect, they cant even guarantee foods to be nut free half the time. But if anyone was really that worried they wouldnt eat prepackaged food at all. Im far more inclined to take the risk and purchase food like that in the expectation that its not going to slowly kill me because they have responsibility to produce nutritious and safe food. Tightening legislation and practice on producing food is only a good thing, I really cant understand why you would want to dismiss the producers responsibility. Everyone should be watching what they eat as a matter of fact, but not studying the ingredients list in detail for every product, thats an unnecessary extreme to me.

As I mentioned in my previous post I do see the advantages of banning trans fats, and if the evidence has just come in about them and producers dont start take steps to reduce or remove them in their foods then of course a ban should be considered.

I dont think it needs to come to that though. Plenty of manufacturers will start switching to alternatives off their own backs as a unique selling point. Sales of other brands will drop and itll be phased out of the market naturally. If people pay attention to what they eat and stop buying it the problem will fix itself.

What I cant ever subscribe to is the argument that people are too stupid or too busy to spend an extra five minutes whilst doing their shopping to read a few labels, and then believe that those same same people making the assertion that they care about what theyre eating actually do. You either care and henceforth make it important enough to pay attention to the ingredients in your ready meals or believe the responsibility lies elsewhere, in which case you have to admit you dont care perhaps as much as you should about what youre eating and are at least partially to blame. It isnt rocket science.

I think Im going to step out of this thread now, to be frank Im astonished so many people see the situation like this and Im not really prepared to budge on my opinions as far as this one goes; I think well just have to agree to disagree on the issue.

Incidentally Im sorry if that sounds a bit snarky, Im acutely aware of the fact that Im about to start repeating myself which wouldnt exactly be bringing anything new or interesting to the thread.  8-)

I agree with you both, Chris and Clockd. IMO producers of prepackaged foods have a responsibility to their consumers to put only healthy(ish) ingredients into their products. They also have a responsibility to declare unhealthy ingredients - this is where the problem lies. How many food packages have clearly displayed ingredients? How easy is it to see trans fats on the ingredients list. It draws similarities with the palm oil situation. To produce farms for palm oil, vast areas of forest are destroyed. Palm oil is on many supermarket shelves in many food stuffs, labelled as vegetable oil. The manufacturers cannot be trusted to inform the public of what is in their meals. The only way to restrict the use of trans fats in foods is to enforce either a) clearly labelled contains trans fats packaging or b) a total ban on trans fats.

I think the main problem of todays food industry is that the big chains of supermarkets have taken over. Why should the management bigwigs behave ethically when they are so disassociated with the public they serve? The supermarkets have no rapport with customers and the crap they put on their shelves is a disgrace. Only yesterday I grabbed a few jams of the shelf of a well known supermarket only to read the ingredients as follows... 35g of fruit per 100g.... 65g of sugar per 100g. Now I aint a jam expert, but i would have said jam should contain at least 50% fruit?! I say bring back the local stores, butchers, bakers and greengrocers. As a nation we have let the supermarkets destroy both our local economies and our national health.