The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday that food manufacturers have only until 2018 to remove artificial trans fat from products. The agency ruled that the ingredient is not safe for human use because it increases one's risk of coronary heart disease, which leads to thousands of fatal heart attacks each year.
Companies were given three years by the FDA to give them ample time to reformulate products. But they can also file a petition to the agency to allow them to use trans fat in specific products. Food manufacturers often use trans fat in food because it is cheap and increases shelf life, stability and texture.
However, experts found that trans fat increases the bad cholesterol in the body and reduces the good cholesterol. The CDC estimated that eliminating trans fat from food could prevent up to 20,000 heart attacks and up to 7,000 fatal heart attacks each year in the United States.
"Studies show that diet and nutrition play a key role in preventing chronic health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, and today's action goes hand in hand with other FDA initiatives to improve the health of Americans, including updating the nutrition facts label," said Susan Mayne, the director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, in a press release. "This determination is based on extensive research into the effects of PHOs, as well as input from all stakeholders received during the public comment period."
Analysts estimated that the transition of the food products would cost companies between $12 and $14 billion, including research, reprinting of labels and packaging.
"It's not a cheap endeavor," said Roger Clemens, a pharmacology professor at the University of Southern California, to USA Today. "The flaky texture of a croissant, of a pie crust are really expectations. [It] takes a lot of food science to understand the chemistry of those interactions so you can duplicate it without compromising the product."
Americans' trans fat consumption dropped 78 percent between 2003 and 2012. Still, an average American consumes around 1.3 grams of artificial trans fat every day from fried items, snacks, frozen pizzas, cake, cookies, margarine, spreads and coffee creamers.
