Posts Tagged ‘Hydrogenation’

Trans Fats Threatens High Ratio Shortening Sales in California

As of January1, 2010, The new law in the state of California has gone into effect. No more Trans Fats in the baked and fried and cooked goods. This will effect the sales of high ratio shortening, which has partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredients.

January 1, 2011 is the date for discontinuing deep-frying yeast dough and cake batter. Violation of this law could result in a fine of $25 to $1000.

While the ban is a soft roll out, many shops are already in compliance. It will be impossible for health inspectors to know by looking at the food products to tell weather or not trans fats are in the foods. Trans Fats are not something you can smell or really even taste. What they are used for is to preserve shelf life.

One concern the bakeries have is that High Ratio Shortening is desirable especially when producing buttercream icings for a creamier and more stable finished product.

There are a few shortening manufactures that are addressing this issue and that have formulated a cake and icing shortening the has “0 trans fats”.

Sweetex and Crisco are two brands that have developed a “0 trans fats” label.

The cost in this transition for the smaller retail shops will not be significant.

The cost however will hit the larger manufacturers a bit but statements in many different forums believe that the cost of health care will most likely drop due to healthier products being produced.

This demand on our eating behaviour has some folks up in arms and concerned about dictatorship in the USA.

Healthy eating choices should start at home and we should all have the right to make those decisions, however, if we are not given the chance to make an educated decision on what is in our food products we are all in “deep trans fat”….

I say keep the High Ratio Shorting available… Demand; that it is posted on the menu’s food items it is in; or on the packaging with a sticker that says “0 trans fats” or “contains trans fats”. Let the public decide what they want to eat.

Here’s a newsflash for you though from the FDA:

According to the FDA, “Food manufacturers are allowed to list amounts of trans fat with less than 0.5 gram (1/2 g) per serving as 0 (zero) on the Nutrition Facts panel.”

Chances are the public will go for the “0 trans fats” and the trans fats products will most likely weed themselves out and not piss off and send the message of dictatorship.

We should still at the end of the day have the freedom of choice that our country was built on.

Related articles Trans Fats and High Ratio Shortening

• Olive Oil vs. Trans Fats (dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Voluntary efforts to cut trans fats have failed: health minister (canada.com)