ramblings~

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ramble ramble ramble
I read with interest the recent flurry of articles in ST's forum page on HPB's decision not to ban trans fats in Singapore following New York's recent ban on trans fats in restaurants. So I shall just ramble here.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/248509/1/.html
As usual, wikipedia has a long article on trans fats too, which are basically the side effect of partial hydrogenation in foodstuffs to make them less prone to rancidity (food chem!)
Interestingly, one of the studies in our Community, Occupational and Family Medicine (COFM) tutorials is strongly involved in all this: the Nurses' Health Survey (NHS)... a cohort study involving 120,000 nurses.
"Hu and colleagues analyzed data from 900 coronary events from the NHS population during 14 years of followup. He determined that a nurse's CHD risk roughly doubled (relative risk of 1.94, CI: 1.43 to 2.61) for each 2% increase in trans fat calories consumed (instead of carbohydrate calories). By contrast, it takes more than a 15% increase in saturated fat calories (instead of carbohydrate calories) to produce a similar increase in risk. Eating non-trans unsaturated fats instead of carbohydrates reduces the risk of CHD rather than increasing it."
All the vegetarians started to get visibly concerned... started big law suits against Oreo etc etc Then it led to a flurry of change in regulation in Denmark, Canada, US...
But in Singapore, we are still quite far behind. According to the CNA article, only 30 percent of packaged food products carry trans fat labelling. And HPB released a statement saying "We should be more worried about saturated fats...A recent 2004 National Health Survey found that 17 percent of Singaporeans exceeded their trans fat intake, and 85 percent took more saturated fat than is recommended."
Dunno how that was calculated but here was what appeared in the forum today:
"Below is a list of the packaged foods commonly consumed by children and adults which contain significant amount of trans fat:
- Ice cream made in S'pore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Those made in Australia, New Zealand and Europe do not contain trans fat as its use is not allowed. - Dairy creamer or coffee creamer. All the 3-in-1 coffee packages contain high levels of trans fats - Most biscuits, packaged chocolates & creamed sweets made in S'pore, Malaysia... (same countries). Biscuits and waffles, especially those with cream filling contain trans fat - Instant noodles. Most are fried with palm oil a great number of which are hydrogenated and thus would have trans fat."
Oh my, that sounds like that's an awful big part of my mugging diet. And goodness know how much is in the made in malaysia palm/soybean mix cooking oil in the kitchen.
But wait! Khong Guan and Hup Seng biscuits claim to have no trans fats! (at least not measurable by 0.01). Maggi, Nissin, Myojo and KOKA all say they are trans fat free too. Same however, cannot be said of Julie's biscuits tsk tsk.
N.B. American Heart Association recommends that your daily intake of trans fats be limited to 1 percent of total calories, which is equivalent to roughly 2 to 2.5 grams of trans fat per day. (The AHA also recommends that you limit saturated fat to about 15 to 19 grams per day.)
ryaniq lived on 11:08 PM
- 03S78 forever -
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