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Trans fat ban effects questioned

A nutrition professor says the Food and Drug Administration has overstated the health benefits of its ban on artificial trans fats in processed foods.

Jeremy Davis, with Southern Illinois University, says removing trans fats is not a silver bullet. He tells Brownfield Ag News there is not a clear connection between partially hydrogenated oils as a cause of heart disease, “It’s not like smoking where there’s that clear connection.” It’s those partially hydrogenated oils that contain trans fats – and the FDA says they must be removed from processed foods in three years.

Davis says the products that contain artificial trans fats will still have to contain fats of some kind and are typically high in calories, “Like Twinkies, potato chips, you know, things that are just naturally calorically dense. So, you question whether it’s the trans fats themselves that are in those foods or just the abundance of calories that are in those foods.”

The FDA, when it announced the trans fat ban, said it would prevent thousands of fatal heart attacks each year. Davis disagrees.

The U.S. soybean industry sees the ban as a plus for the continued growth and development of high-oleic soybeans which produce a “healthy” fat.

AUDIO:  Interview with Jeremy Davis (10:00 mp3)