“Positive labelling“ for foods with No Trans Fats - whereby food manufacturers voluntarily declare their products to be trans fat free - has been proposed for Singapore.

The proposal was announced in the Singapore Parliament on 23 January 2007, after the Member of Parliament for Jurong East GRC (Group Representative Constituency), Ms Halimah Yacob, raised the issue of trans fat labeling.

Not surprisingly, she got another "No” answer. But perhaps as a concession, the Minister of State for Health. Heng Chee How, said that the Health Promotion Board was working with food manufacturers to introduce “positive labelling” soon.

I, for one, am not positive about this form of No Trans Fats labelling. Below is an expanded version of a commentary I wrote.

No trans fats here? No, not really!

There is no need for encouragement from government health authorities like the Health Promotion Board. Once the food companies recognise the benefits, meaning once consumers are aware of certain health issues, they will happily put up such labels and slogans. No prompting needed.

Such labels can, of course, be helpful to consumers. But more often than not, labels such as ”No Trans Fats” serve more to confuse and confound consumers, distracting their attention from the real issues.

Let's consider a few examples…

“No cholesterol”, on products like margarine, really means “contains trans fats”. And as some consumers are only now starting to realise, trans fats are far more harmful than saturated fats and cholesterol.

On products like peanut butter, "No cholesterol” actually has no meaning. Peanuts are not supposed to contain cholesterol in the first place. It’s like labelling a pack of carrots "no meat".

If you see "No sugar” or “No calories”, does it mean “No worries”? On the contrary. Such product are made with aspartame or other artificial sweeteners.

Depending on who you wish to believe, these sweeteners are either perfectly safe, or linked to about a hundred different health problems including migraine, epileptic seizures and certain types of cancer. Do the research and decide for yourself.

What about “No preservatives”? Well, the product might contain artificial colouring and artificial flavouring. And vice versa. “No artificial colouring” could mean that it contains preservatives and other chemical poisons.

“No added MSG” is a bit tricker. It means no MSG had been added, but does not mean that no MSG was already present in some of the ingredients used.

And so on. Reading food labels is both a science and an art. It requires knowledge of, amongst other things, food science, chemistry, vocabulary, language nuances and the law. If you are not savvy, chances are you will “no understand”.

Let’s now consider what “No trans fats” could mean…

Firstly, if current US legislation on trans fat labelling is followed, ”No Trans Fats” could mean “contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving”.

Moreover, a “serving” could be much less than what you normally eat. For example, a serving of margarine is about 1 tsp, barely enough to spread very thinly over a slice of bread!

So in one meal, you could end up eating 4 or 5 or more “servings”. You could consuming several grams of trans fats per day – enough to significantly increase your risks of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer and infertility. Yet, according to the label, you are consuming “No trans fats”.

Canadian laws are stricter and only products with less than 0.2 grams of trans fat per serving can declare as having “No trans fats”.

Secondly, “No trans fats” could mean that the product was made with fully hydrogenated oils, rather than partially hydrogenated oils. Some brands of peanut butter, for example, are now made with fully hydrogenated oils.

It is true that fully hydrogenated oils have no trans fats left.

During the process of hydrogenation, because of the intense heat and pressure and the use of chemical catalysts, some oil molecules get twisted out of shape at the point where they had weak double bonds. These are the trans fats.

But if hydrogenation is fully carried out, all the weak double bonds would have been filled with hydrogen atoms and the oil becomes saturated. There are no weak points left, no more out-of-shape molecules.

Some people believe that such oils, although unnatural, are still not as harmful as trans fats.

I disagree. If an oil fully endures a highly unnatural industrial process that renders it harmful, can it become healthy again? Simply because it now has “No trans fats”? No way!

One such type of fat is called “interesterified” fat. The word seems to me like it is formed by combining two other words – "interesting" and “terrified”.

Early reports are beginning to show that interesterified fats are as harmful as trans fats, if not more so. Among other things, they have been found to depress the level of HDL or "good" cholesterol, raise blood glucose and depress insulin. Seems like it will be another cause of heart disease and diabetes.

Click here to learn more about why No Trans Fats may not be a good thing.

Thirdly, in the case of regular cooking oils like corn, soybean, etc, “No trans fats” again does not mean that they are healthy. Unless they had been cold-pressed and stored in dark bottles in cool places, these oils had already turned rancid because of the high heat used in extraction, and again in deodorisation (to remove the rancid smell).

So I am not too positive about positive labelling for products with “No trans fats”.

Rancid oils are, in fact, another major health problem except that not many people talk about them.

There are, of course, instances where positive labelling can be helpful to consumers. In some cases, they tell you more about competitor products rather than the one being labelled. Let me explain...

This morning (28 January 2007) I went to a food centre near my flat and saw a stall selling soy bean curd. It labelled itself "Freshly made. No Gypsum powder."

And so I learnt that other bean curd / tofu makers use gypsum. In case you wonder, that's plaster, the stuff used for plastering walls, making gypsum board, blackboard chalk, etc.

Another time, I read on the label on a packet of eggs, "No artificial colouring". More recently, a news report from China said famers had fed toxic dyes to chickens so that they produce eggs with darker yolks!

And once, I noticed some chickens in the supermarket labelled ABF. Closer inspection revealed that ABF stands for "Antibiotic Free".

I find such positive labelling quite enlightening – about what's negative in competitor products!

And of course, there will be some genuinely good, healthy products. These will likely contain a long list of No’s – No trans fats, no MSG, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, no chemical preservatives, no artificial colouring, no artificial flavouring, no dairy, no refined salt, no synthetic vitamins, no antibiotic residues, no growth hormones… no half truths.

Apart from these, the one other type of positive labelling that I know of are those that say “Halal”, which means, among other things, “No pork” and prepared according to certain prescribed procedures.

“Halal” is one no nonsense label that is very strictly enforced because it concerns religious practices. And one does not mess around with religion.

But then, shouldn’t we be religious about our food intake? Shouldn’t we regard our health, and our life, as sacred?

– A shorter version of this article was published in TODAY newspaper on 25 Janauy 2007.