Increased consumption of trans fatty acids (TFA) is associated with increased risk of cardio-vascular disease (CVD). The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) organised a workshop on the 9th and 10th April in Zagreb, Croatia entitled 'Trans fatty acids in diets: health and legislative implications'. The workshop brought together around 30 European experts on fats, food science and technology, public health and nutrition and aimed to 1) present and discuss recent data on the presence of TFA in food and their consumption in Europe and 2) to exchange ideas and practices on how to reduce exposure to TFA.
This report summarises the data presented and the discussions held at this workshop. The known negative health implications of industrial trans fatty acids (iTFA) consumption were further stressed but it was also made clear that in contrast with the worrying situation seen in many European countries ten to fifteen years ago, the vast majority of the food products analysed for TFA content in recent years, and for which data is available, do not contain high levels of TFA. This improved situation is likely due to efforts from several stakeholders in reducing iTFA levels in foods, both voluntarily or enforced in some member states by regulatory measures. Nevertheless, data presented at the workshop showed that products with high levels of TFA can still be found on the market in some countries and depending on their frequency of consumption these may represent a cause for public health concern. The participants also discussed the need for further data collection on the presence of TFA in foods and how to best collect these data as well as the different technological options to reduce and replace iTFA in foods along with their costs and health benefits. Participants also noted that any TFA public health related-measures in this regard must not neglect the health implications of overconsumption of other nutrients such as saturated fats (SFA), salt (sodium) and sugars.
On the last session of the workshop, the participants discussed different public health approaches to further reduce TFA intake in Europe, such as legislative limits on TFA content in foodstuffs, mandatory and voluntary TFA labelling schemes and voluntary food reformulation pledges. The outcome of this session is presented in this report in the form of a table including relevant criteria to be considered when comparing these different approaches.
MOURATIDOU Theodora;
MARTIN SABORIDO Carlos;
WOLLGAST Jan;
ULBERTH Franz;
LOURO CALDEIRA Sandra;
2013-11-04
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC84396
978-92-79-33417-7 (print),
978-92-79-33416-0,
1018-5593 (print),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 26198,
OP LB-NA-26198-EN-C (print),
OP LB-NA-26198-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC84396,
10.2788/31567 (print),
10.2788/30943 (online),
