Trans Fats: The Devil Is In The Details
India plans to cap the amount of this deadly unsaturated fat found across various food sectors before the WHO deadline of 2023. But some loopholes in the draft law need to be plugged first.Trans Fatty Acid (TFA), or trans fats -a form of unsaturated fat, industrially produced trans fats is a toxic chemical that can cause heart attacks and deaths. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India or FSSAI has published two draft regulations to limit TFA. One issued in December 2018 proposes to lower the TFA limit to 2% by January 2022, but it applies only to fats and oils. The second draft regulation issued in August 2019 proposes a 2% TFA limit, but only for foods “in which edible oils and fats are used as an ingredient.” But there is a significant loophole which could totally negate the idea behind the cap. Neither of the regulations apply to all fats, oils, and foods. It is critical that the TFA limit is applied to all fats, oils, and foods, because some foods could be high in TFA, yet fall outside the regulation’s scope. Thus, the population would still be at risk of consuming dangerous levels of TFA.
