• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, August 7, 2015

The Grocery Manufacturers Association has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to allow food manufacturers to continue to include small amounts of artificial trans fats.

The maximum amounts proposed would vary by food category.

The petition is a response to the FDA's announcement in June that food companies must phase out trans fats by 2018. The agency issued a final determination that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) would no longer qualify as "generally recognized as safe" or GRAS additives, estimating that their elimination from foods will prevent thousands of heart attacks and deaths each year.

However, the FDA allowed for the filing of petitions for food additive uses "for which industry or other interested individuals believe that safe conditions of use may be prescribed." 

"Our food additive petition shows that the presence of trans fat from the proposed low-level uses of PHOs is as safe as the naturally occurring trans fat present in the normal diet," stated GMA'S chief science officer, Leon Bruner, in announcing its petition. "It's important to know that food and beverage companies have already voluntarily lowered the amount of trans fat added to food products by more than 86% and will continue lowering PHO use to levels similar to naturally occurring trans fat found in the diet."

In a statement, Michael F. Jacobson, Center for Science in the Public Interest president, countered that if the petition were granted, "it would not result in foods that contain several grams of artificial trans fat per serving. But, if all foods contained as much trans fat as the petition requests, people would be consuming about as much artificial trans fat as they are now. Americans are already getting unavoidable trans fat from naturally occurring sources in the diet.

"There's little, if any, room left for the industrially produced kind from partially hydrogenated oils. But companies apparently want to market foods with a quarter or half a gram of trans fat in a serving. For some people, such as consumers of microwave popcorn and Cinnabons, the amounts could add up to a significant health risk. Safer substitutes for partially hydrogenated oil have been deployed for every kind of food, so there’s really no excuse to keep using it."