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Food Safety

Editor's Note

Listen a bit more closely

By Joyce Fassl
Joyce Fassl
July 8, 2015

Like most educated consumers, I got the message about the consequences of eating food containing trans fats some time ago. But with FDA’s recent announcement that food manufacturers will have three years to remove partially hydrogenated oils from their products, I decided to take a closer look at what I was eating.

When I checked my refrigerator, freezer and kitchen cabinets, I did not find one item in my home that contained trans fats—all of them had a big zero in the trans fat box.

Then, I came across multiple online articles that listed popular items that still contain trans fats, such as canned frosting, savory snacks, microwave popcorn, packaged pie, frozen pizza, margarine, coffee creamer and certain candy products. I don’t purchase these items, except for crackers and an occasional package of microwave popcorn or candy.

After doing some additional research on the topic, I concluded most consumers would not have the time to read all the ingredient literature and make sense of it. Plus, they are probably unaware of the meaning of terms such as hydrolyzed and interesterified, for example. I wondered how they could possibly know the difference between hydrogenated oil and partially hydrogenated oil. While conversations on these topics rarely pop up with my friends and family, they occasionally occur with office colleagues.

Twenty-five years ago, I had a coworker at Food Engineering who frequently spoke about the health dangers of trans fat in processed food. This person was not one of the food technologists we had on staff, but she was certainly a highly educated consumer. Looking back, I see she was way ahead of her time, and I wish I listened a bit more closely.

The food manufacturing challenges go on. The industry continues to make needed formulation changes for better consumer health, but it also must continue its consumer education programs and, maybe sometimes, listen even a little bit more closely to consumer concerns.

KEYWORDS: consumer trends FDA food and beverage industry trends regulations

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Joyce fassl 200px
Joyce Fassl has spent most of her career in magazine management. As the former editor-in-chief of Food Engineering, Fassl has directed the magazine’s editorial staff since 1986, except for a two-year stretch where she oversaw content direction for the debut of Packexpo.com. Her expertise is creating dynamic print and online content, building top-notch editorial teams and managing innovative custom publishing projects and live events. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Penn State University. In addition to supervising all Food Engineering content, Joyce is Program Director for the Food Automation & Manufacturing Conference.

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