Transfat Content to Appear on Nutritional Information Labels
WHITFIELD: So much more ahead in the NEWSROOM. Carol Lin will be taking us through the evening.</s>CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We have a couple of really interesting segments. We're going to continue with this whole story around Congressman Mark Foley and these very explicit e-mails he was allegedly sending to teenage pages. We have got a "Blog Buzz" segment. So, a blogger on the right and a blogger on the left: it is really interesting where they meet in the middle, but have very distinct opinions. And we're also getting more statements from the Democratic National Committee and various planners.</s>WHITFIELD: All of this suddenly coming out.</s>LIN: You bet. With a lot to say.</s>WHITFIELD: And something to say.</s>LIN: And we're taking e-mails too. We're going to be soliciting e-mails from our viewers and throwing them at the bloggers. At 6:00 -- I did not know this -- but military recruiters have unfettered access to your children in schools because of the No Child Left Behind Act. So Randy Kaye, I think it actually ran in your show too, but I have a guest to talk about that parents can do. Can you opt out? It is such a serious situation with these military recruiters, that this woman is working on legislation to give parents more rights to protect their children from these aggressive military recruiting tactics. In Randy Kaye's piece, obviously the recruiter went way too far, attacking that young girl. But it is a fascinating issue. I had no idea.</s>WHITFIELD: A lot of us learned a thing or two through these segments now. All right, thanks a lot, Carol. Well, the fat is in the fire in New York City. We're talking about transfat. The city health department wants to bar restaurants from cooking with transfat, a common ingredient in just about everything, from doughnuts to french fries to pie crusts. As CNN's senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports, transfats are under fire across the country, and some restaurant operators have already cut down.</s>SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICALL CORRESPONDENT: With the hiss and sizzle, one fast food company is making unexpected health history. Wendy's has removed the majority of transfats from the oil used to make fries and chicken.</s>LORI ESTRADA, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, WENDY'S: This reduction in transfat is part of our ongoing effort to improve the nutritional profile of our food without impacting taste or quality.</s>GUPTA: So why is this important? Scientists estimate there are over 50,000 premature deaths each year linked to eating transfats. Transfat is bad for your heart because it raises your bad cholesterol and also lowers what doctors call your good cholesterol.</s>DR. ROBERT EXCKEL, AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION: We know from large numbers of nutrition based studies over daceds now that saturated fats and transfats both tend to raise the bad cholesterol. Now we certainly know that people with higher levels of bad cholesterol appear to have more heart disease and stroke. So we have no alternative enzymes that we can...</s>GUPTA: Dr. Exckel says that Americans on average eat about three times as much transfat as recommended. The threat to our health is so serious, the FDA required manufacturers to list transfats on nutrition labels beginning this year. Food writer Kim Serverson says as soon as the labels changed, processed food makers eliminated transfats from 40 percent of their products. Snacks like Oreos and Frito Lay chips are now marketed as transfat free.</s>KIM SERVERSON, AUTHOR, "TRANS FAT SOLUTION": The battleground now are restaurants and fast food companies. And that's, I think, where you'll really see the changes coming.</s>GUPTA: The FDA doesn't require restaurants to tell customers how much transfat they're eating, which might explain why change there is so slow. Transfat is on the menu at just about all the fast food giants: Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Arby's, Hardees. McDonald's tried to lose the transfat. They company announced in 2002 it would reduce transfats, but it hasn't eliminated them, at least not in the United States. In countries like Denmark, where laws severely limit transfat foods, McDonald's fries are transfat-free. And McDonald's issued this statement in response to CNN's questions about transfat. McDonald's "takes the matter of trans-fatty acids seriously, and we continue to work on diligently ways to reduce the TFA levels in our food. Our test procedures in the United States are taking longer than anticipated." According to McDonald's Web site, a single large serving of fries has eight grams of transfat. That's four times the amount the FDA says the average American should eat in an entire day. Without federal guidelines, one Chicago politician hopes to force restaurants into trimming the transfat. Alderman Edward Burke introduced a bill which would require all Chicago restaurants with at least $20 million in annual growth sales to eliminate transfat from the menu. It is the first such proposed legislation in the country.</s>ALD. EDWARD BURKE, CHICAGO 14TH WARD: Just as taxpayers are paying for people's smoking habits, they'll be paying for people's eating habits. And there is a role, I think, for government to play in this whole nationwide crisis.</s>GUPTA: The Illinois Restaurant Association says a transfat ban is a bad idea.</s>COLLEEN MCSHANE, ILLINOIS RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION: If you want french fries, or if you want, you know, bread that tastes like paper, well, then support Alderman Burke's arguments. Let the market drive this, supply and demand. Government need not come in, regulate restaurants.</s>GUPTA: Until more consumers realize how unhealthy transfat really is, the debate about how to lower it is likely to continue. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.</s>WHITFIELD: So what is this killer known as transfat? And how did it get on to our dinner tables in the first place? For more on that, let's bring in Dr. Bill Lloyd. So, this gobblydegook isn't good for us, but isn't it the stuff that kind of makes certain foods taste good?</s>DR. BILL LLOYD, UNIV. OF CALIF.-DAVIS MEDICAL CTR.: The biggest part of it, Fredricka, is not so much flavor, unlike what that woman said in the report, but it's the stability of the product. It is the bottom line for processed food makers. When you make an oil and add hydrogen to it, it turns into transfat, which increases its shelf life, and it also makes the oil more stable so you can use it again and again and again, like when you get french fries. How much batches have they made? Well, if it's transfats, they're going to make hundreds of batches of french fries with the same oil. So it's a big economic issue. Many people say you really can't tell the difference in foods prepared with transfats versus other safer forms of fat substitutes.</s>WHITFIELD: So in Dr. Sanjay Gupta's piece, we learned that each person should not get more than four grams of transfat a day. Boy, that seems like a low number. And is that really possible, considering there are so many foods that we're consuming that are not labeled how many transfats are in it.</s>LLOYD: Well there is FDA labeling rules. And if you buy a package of food, like cookies or whatever, it will tell you how much transfats there are per portion, so long as there is at least a half a gram of transfat in that. If there is less than half a gram, it doesn't have to be on the label. So you do have to be scrupulous when you're looking at packaged foods or processed foods. The question in New York, of course, is restaurant foods don't have labels, so you really don't know what you're getting. Yes, it possible to make intelligent choices and eliminate transfats from your diets if you're careful in looking at the things you put in your food, particularly those fat substitutes, like margarines and shortens and things that come in tubs and cans. And be careful about what is in those products, and think about the use of liquid vegetable oils to get rid of transfats from your household cooking items.</s>WHITFIELD: So the big problem when we go out to eat, so when we buy those processed or packaged foods and they are contained on the label, do we believe in zero transfat? Is that possible?</s>LLOYD: Well, you know, we're talking about artificial transfats, Fredricka, and there are natural transfats that occur in dairy products and occur in meat, in beef and lamb. So you're still get some transfats anyway. It is important to know, though, nutritionists say no one has proven that the naturally occurring transfats cause the same kind of heart vessel problems that the artificial ones do. So we're not telling anyone they need to go all vegetarian at this point. But the artificial, the synthetic transfats, we know they're dangerous and there is no safe level of them. The smartest thing you can do, just like smoking, is get it out of your life.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. And I don't know. If you like french fries like I do, I feel like I've tasted the french fries with transfats and those without and yes, they do taste different.</s>LLOYD: No, Fredricka, canola oil.</s>WHITFIELD: Yes, they do.</s>LLOYD: I cook the french fries in our house, you make them in canola oil and you put lots of salt on them and they taste just great.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Dr. Bill Lloyd, thanks very much.</s>LLOYD: We'll talk again soon.</s>WHITFIELD: Good to see you. So much more ahead on this scandal coming out of Capitol Hill. Congressman Mark Foley resigned abruptly yesterday amid reports he sent sexually explicit messages to congressional pages. Now we're learning some GOP leaders were aware of all of this almost a year ago. So do you think the GOP leadership should have done more to intervene in the Foley matter? E-mail us at weekends@CNN.com. Carol Lin will read some of your responses in the next hour of the NEWSROOM. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Have a great evening.