Nexus - 0602 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

THE OILING oF AMERICA OILING AMERICA THE Food corporations and medical authorities continue to promote the consumption of hydrogenated vegetable oils, despite the growing evidence as to the health risks. Part 2 of 2 he other area needing further investigation concerned just how much trans fat there was in a ‘normal diet’ of the typical American. What had hampered any thorough research into the correlation of trans fatty acid consumption and dis- ease was the fact that these altered fats were not considered as a separate catego- ry in any of the databases then available to researchers. The massive Health and Human Services National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II), conducted during the years 1976 to 1980, noted the increasing US consumption of margarine, French fried potatoes, cookies and snack chips—all made with vegetable shortenings—without listing the proportion of trans fats present. Mary Enig first looked at the NHANES II database in 1987 and, when she did, she had a sinking feeling. Not only were trans fats conspicuously absent from the fatty acid analyses, but data on other lipids made no sense at all. Even foods containing no trans fats were listed with faulty fatty-acid profiles. In general, the NHANES II database tend- ed to minimise the amount of saturated fats in common foods. Over the years, Joseph Sampagna and Mark Keeney, both highly qualified lipid bio- chemists at the University of Maryland, applied to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Dairy Council and the National Livestock and Meat Board for funds to look into the trans content of common American foods. Only the National Livestock and Meat Board came through with a small grant for equipment; the others turned them down. A USDA official confided to the Maryland research group that they "would never get money as long as they pursued the trans work". Nevertheless, they did pursue it. Sampagna, Keeney and a few graduate students, funded jointly by the USDA and the uni- versity, spent thousands of hours in the laboratory analysing the trans fat content of hun- dreds of commercially available foods. In December of 1982, Food Processing carried a brief preview of the University of Maryland research” and, five months later, printed a blistering letter from Edward Hunter on behalf of the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils (ISEO).” The University of Maryland studies on trans fat content in common foods had obviously struck a nerve in the industry. Hunter stated that the Bailar, Applewhite and Meyer letters that had appeared in Federation Proceedings five years earlier, "severely criticized and discredit- ed" the conclusions reached by Enig and her colleagues. Hunter was concerned that Enig's group would exaggerate the amount of trans found in common foods. He cited ISEO data indicating that most margarines and shortenings contain no more than 35 per cent and 25 per cent trans respectively, and that most contain considerably less. What Enig and her colleagues actually found was that many margarines indeed con- tained about 31 per cent trans fat, while later surveys by others revealed that Parkay mar- garine contained up to 45 per cent trans, and that many shortenings found ubiquitously in cookies, chips and baked goods contained more than 35 per cent trans fat. Enig also dis- covered that many baked goods and processed foods contained considerably more fat from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils than was listed on the labels. The final results of Enig's ground-breaking compilation were published in the October 1983 edition of the Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society." Her analyses of more than 220 food items, coupled with food disappearance data, allowed University of Maryland researchers to confirm earlier estimates that the average American consumed at least 12 grams of trans fat per day—directly contradicting ISEO assertions that most Americans consumed no more that 6 to 8 grams of trans fat per day. Those who by Mary G. Enig, PhD MGEnig@aol.com & Sally Fallon SAFallon@aol.com © 1998 by Mary G. Enig, PhD MGEnig@aol.com & Sally Fallon SAFallon@aol.com © 1998 NEXUS - 35 FEBRUARY — MARCH 1999