New York City to ban trans fatty acids

New York: There are plenty of things in Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) that are bad for your health- cholesterol, saturated fat and salt, to name a few.

However, only one has the potential to get the colonel's recipe banned in New York City.

That ingredient is artificial trans fatty acids, which are so common that the average American eats 4.7 pounds a year, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

City health officials say that these so-called trans fats are so unhealthy they belong in the same category as food spoiled by rodent droppings.

On Monday, the Board of Health will hold its first public hearing on a proposal to make New York the first US city to ban restaurants from serving food containing artificial trans fats.

Eateries are scrambling for ways to get trans fats out of their food.

KFC Corp said that it was planning a "major announcement" in New York on Monday about a change coming to all 5,500 of its US restaurants.

Franchise owners told several newspapers and magazines that KFC would stop using partially hydrogenated vegetable oil- the primary source of artificial trans fats.

Representatives of the company and its parent, Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc, declined to comment,

However, the possible switch was applauded by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which sued KFC in June over the trans fat content of its chicken.

"Assuming KFC goes through with it, it would be a tremendous improvement for the nutritional quality of their foods," said the center's executive director, Mike Jacobson.

Invented in the early 1900s, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil was initially believed to be a healthy substitute for natural fats like butter or lard.

It was also cheaper, performed better under high heat and had a longer shelf life. Today, it is used for deep-frying and as a shortening in baked goods like cookies and crackers.

Ironically, many fast food companies became dependent on hydrogenated oil about 15 years ago when they were pressured by health groups to do something about saturated fat.

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McDonald's emptied its fryers of beef tallow in 1990 and filled them with what was then thought to be "heart healthy" partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Trans fats significantly raise the level of so-called "bad" cholesterol in the blood, clogging arteries and causing heart disease.

Researchers at Harvard's School of Public Health estimated that trans fats contribute to 30,000 U.S. deaths a year.

"This is something we'd like to dismiss from our food supply," said immediate past president of the American Heart Association, Dr Robert H Eckel.

Wendy's, the national burger chain, has already switched to zero-trans fat oil. McDonald's announced in 2003 that it intended to do so, but has yet to follow through.

If approved, New York's ban would only affect restaurants, not grocery stores, and wouldn't extend beyond the city limits.

However, experts said that the city's food service industry, with 24,600 establishments, is so large that any rule change is likely to ripple nationwide.

"It's going to be the trendsetter for the entire country," said Suzanne Vieira, director of the culinary nutrition program at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R I.

A spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, Richard Lipsky said that many New York eatery owners rely on ingredients prepared elsewhere, and aren't always aware whether the foods they sell contain trans fats.

Consumer reaction remains to be seen.

New Jersey State Sen Ellen Karcher said her office was flooded with threatening phone calls after she proposed a similar trans fat ban in early October.

Some as government paternalism run amok ridiculed a proposed ban in Chicago.

Medical director for preventative cardiology and rehabilitation at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr Leslie Cho said that people might be less upset if they knew how bad trans fats are for the body.

"I don't know anything about politics, but what I tell my patients is that they should not eat any type of artificial trans fat," she said.

Do they listen?

"The majority of the people I deal with have had stents or bypass surgery," she said adding, "They are kind of motivated to change their lives."