Five or so years ago when the FDA decided that food labels needed to list the amount of trans fat in the product, I was working at Target on their private label business.  Like many other companies at the time, Target made the decision to remove trans fat from as many of their private label products as they could.  In light of the negativity around this nutrient, manufacturers wanted to have a “0 grams” in that spot on the label if at all possible. 

Fast forward to today.  Yes, literally today.  This morning, in fact.  As you know, NuVal LLC, the company I work for scores products on a scale of 1-100, the higher the score, the better the nutrition.  As part of the work we do, we keep a record of all the nutrition information and ingredient lists on tens of thousands of products.  I was running some reports against that data this morning, and “for fun” ran a report to see how many products have trans fat in them.

Of the almost 73,000 products in our database (including national and private label brands):

• More than 2,500 have 0.5 grams or more trans fat listed in the Nutrition Facts Panel
• Nearly 9,000 items have a “partially hydrogenated” oil in the ingredient declaration

Why the difference?  The FDA regulations indicate that if there is 0.49 grams of trans fat or less in a product, it is declared as “0” in the Nutrition Facts Panel.  So these other 6,500 products have low levels of trans fat in them, not enough to get counted on the nutrition panel.

The next logical question is whether it matters?  It does, if you consider that the recommended level of consumption for trans fat is as close to zero as possible in light of this nutrient’s negative impact on the risk of heart and other diseases.

I was actually surprised at the number of products that still have trans fat in them.  Almost 9,000.  Wow.  In looking at the food categories, these low levels of trans fat can be found in frozen pizzas, trail mixes, muffins, rice-type side dishes, microwave popcorn, candy, ice creams, crackers, cookies, drink mixes, and appetizers, to name a few. 

The take-home message?  While you don’t hear much about trans fat these days (the media has moved on to sweeteners and back to sodium as the evil nutrients), it’s still out there in foods you find on your grocery store shelf.

Visit www.nuval.com to use a system which guides you away from foods with trans fat and takes the presence of any trans fat into account when calculating a score—even if it is only on the ingredient list and not on the Nutrition Facts Panel.

Last month, I spent some time with the Moms Like Me group in St. Cloud, Minnesota.  One interesting thing that I took away was that several of the group members relied on “low fat” claims as an indicator of the overall healthfulness of the product.  Products with this claim were the ones they chose as a nutritious option.

These moms are not alone.  For years, the media, health professionals and many sources have suggested that “low fat” was the way to go.

But in reality, it’s time to let go of this urban legend.  Here’s why:

• It’s not total fat we need to worry about.  It’s saturated and trans fat that are the evil culprits.  While it is sometimes true that products with a “low fat” claim are also low in saturated fat and free of trans fat, it isn’t always true.
• There are foods that are low fat, but don’t provide any positive nutrition.  Take your basic, standard pretzels, example.  Essentially, they’re made of white, refined flour and some salt.  Nothing harmful, really, but nothing helpful either.  No fiber, no calcium or vitamin D, no good fats. 
• Sometimes, when the fat gets taken out, other things get added in such as more sodium or sugar.
• Fat in food doesn’t necessarily translate to fat on a body.  Body fat comes from eating too many calories overall.

Visit www.nuval.com to see the Moms Like Me groups go-to system for making more nutritious food choices.

It is a consistent theme that you’ll hear from me again and again in this blog – nutrition is both a young science and a complicated science.  I bring this up today in follow-up to an article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that hit many professional list servs and blogs yesterday.

In essence, the article suggested that eating saturated fat might not really increase your risk of heart disease.  This, of course, contradicts everything you’ve heard, and now you’re left frustrated and confused.

But stay with me here.  In the 1970s, we believed all fat was bad.  In the 1980s and 1990s, we learned there are good fats (mono- and polyunsaturated, omega-3s) and bad fats (saturated).  In the 2000s, we added trans fat to the “bad” list.  What’s happening now in the science community is that they’re looking at the various types of saturated fat to see if they impact the body differently.  This research is dropping the understanding of fats down a whole other level.  We’ve gone from the 10,000 foot level (limit the amount of fat you eat) to the 1 foot level (different types of saturated fat may impact the body differently).  It’s all part of the complexity of food and nutrition.

So what’s my advice?  Don’t jump ship and gorge yourself on sausages and cheese the rest of the day.  Let the scientific process play out, and in the meantime, stick to known advice.

Visit www.nuval.com to see how saturated fats and all fats drive scores up or down.