Banish bad fats
March 10, 2009
Grocery shoppers can read labels and avoid trans fats, along with all those extra calories and sugar and sodium. But parsing the ingredients in a restaurant meal is not so easy, and that’s particularly relevant to Houstonians. When it comes to dining out, Houston leads the nation, with an average of 4.2 restaurant visits per week. (The national average: 3.2 times.)
Written by Editorial, The Houston Chronicle
It takes just a quick trip around the grocery store perusing the signs on display cases to confirm what you already knew: “No trans fats!” “Zero trans fats!” No doubt about it: Trans fats are bad for us.
They raise bad cholesterol and increase the risk of strokes, diabetes and heart failure. And heart failure alone, one of the leading causes of death in the United States, kills more than 500,000 people a year.
Grocery shoppers can read labels and avoid trans fats, along with all those extra calories and sugar and sodium. But parsing the ingredients in a restaurant meal is not so easy, and that’s particularly relevant to Houstonians. When it comes to dining out, Houston leads the nation, with an average of 4.2 restaurant visits per week. (The national average: 3.2 times.)
That’s one very good reason to applaud the bill introduced in the Texas House this week by Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, to ban artificial trans fats in all Texas restaurants, and to require that all prepared and served foods contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. (A similar bill, authored by Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, is making its way through the state Senate.)
It’s not a revolutionary idea, so one can hope that its chances of passage are good. Many local restaurants have already stopped using them, as have national chains like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King and Wendy’s. California is so far the only state to ban them in restaurants and bakeries, but several cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Seattle, have ordinances banning their use.
Trans fats occur naturally in small amounts in dairy products and some other foods but don’t require labeling because they are regarded as beneficial. But in the 1950s, as a reaction to saturated fats like lard and butter, which were found to be unhealthy, restaurants and bakers turned to pure vegetable oils that were partially hydrogenated to extend shelf life and stabilize flavor — a process that created artificial trans fats. Now we know that wasn’t a good idea, either.
So until those artery-clogging fats are banished for good, Houstonians should be asking restaurants — 4.2 times a week if necessary — whether trans fats are being used, and if so, why?
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