Ordinary Gweilo

Last year I seem to recall I was rather dismissive of a food label that said “0g Trans Fat” – on the grounds that the product still had a high fat content.  However, perhaps that was a little unfair – it is widely accepted that there are good fats and bad fats, and Trans Fats are the worst of the lot (The Guardian has more on this).

This is yet another case of the food industry finding something cheap that has benefits for them (it makes their products last longer and look and keep better) but which has no nutritional value and is actually very bad for whoever eats the stuff (see this in the New Scientist). 

Unsurprisingly, junk food often has a lot of Trans Fat in it – McDonald’s settled a class-action suit last year and KFC are currently being sued in the US – but it can appear almost anywhere.  Food manufacturers know a good thing when they see it – good for them, bad for us, that is.   

Since the start of this year, it has been mandatory in the US to itemise Trans Fats, and I guess the UK will follow suit – big supermarkets have pledged to remove all Trans Fat from their own-label products, and several large manufacturers have also announced that they will at least reduce the amount in their products (and I’m sure that they will be keen to tell us about it).

It’s highly unlikely that Hong Kong will make it mandatory to identify Trans Fats, so we will have to make do with the usual hotpotch of different labels from different countries.  There are a few clues, though, if you can recognize names such as “vegetable shortening” or “hydrogenated vegetable oil”, or you may be able to compare the total percentage of fat with the breakdown (saturated, poly-unsaturated, mono-unsaturated) to see what is missing (clue – it’s probably Trans Fat). 

Going back to those Pringles with 0g of Trans Fat, I noticed that there is another similar product which proudly claims that it is “baked, not fried”, but lurking in the ingredients is vegetable shortening.  I think I know what that is…