TRANS FATS IN THE UK
– a possible ban?
The campaign against trans fats in the UK has all along been led by consumers and the food industry, with the government so far refusing to adopt any measures such as legislating trans fat labelling or imposing a trans fat ban.
This could soon change, according to uncinformed press reports there. On 14 January 2007, the Scotland Sunday newspaper reported that the British government was planning to ban trans fats.
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Sunday Scotland said it “can reveal that ministers have finally lost patience with the food industry's continuing failure to remove trans fats voluntarily. Talks are under way between the Food Standards Agency and Department of Health on measures leading up to a ban. British food firms are only likely to avoid a legal ban if they make a rapid and concerted attempt to drastically reduce trans fat levels or remove them altogether.”
The source said: "We are already at the forefront of moves to get better labelling of trans fats in the EU, but you can expect more action from us in future months at home. Labelling is a start, but the government is prepared to look at all proactive options leading up to a total ban."
Oliver Tickell on trans fats in the UK
Oliver Tickell, who leads the campaign against trans fats in the UK, was quoted in the Scotland Sunday report saying:"The government's stance so far has been quite extraordinarily hopeless. Ministers have admitted that there are health risks associated with these products, but they have claimed that they want to focus on the dangers posed by saturated fats instead.
"I agree that saturated fats are dangerous, but a government should be able to tackle more than one threat at a time. If they are going to act, any movement would be welcome."
A government ban on trans fats in the UK would, indeed, be welcomed by campaigners such as Oliver Tickell, who has all along been disappointed with what he mildly describes as “the detachment of government and regulatory authorities from public health.”
“Government agencies have no accountability to the public. The Food Standards Agency is more accountable to the food industry than to the people.
“The government is only loosely accountable to the people. It's like the case with the war in Iraq. Nobody wanted Britain to go to war, but the government went ahead anyway. It shows how feeble democracy is. Coming from a nation with a strong tradition of democracy, the feeling is not very nice.”
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The media on trans fats in the UK
“There have been a number of high profile articles about trans fats in the UK press,” Oliver Tickell reports. “For example, when Harvard researchers reported in January 2007 that trans fat was linked to infertility, the Daily Express carried it as front page news.
Supermarkets and trans fats in the UK
Supermarkets, too, are much closer to the people than the government, Oliver Tickell observes. He describes British supermarkets as being “fantastic in cleaning up their act” to remove trans fats from their house brand products.
“All of the movement against trans fats in the UK has been led by consumers and players in the industry -- the media, supermarkets and the multiple retailers as well as progressive food manufacturers and processors,” Oliver Tickell reports.
Marks & Spencer, one of Britain's biggest supermarket and department store chain, triggered the movement against trans fats in the UK when it announce that it would remove trans fats from its products by mid-2006.
Waitrose, another supermarket chain, followed suit soon after. Other major supermarket chains – Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda – announced in August 2006 that they would remove trans fats in their house brand products by the end of the year, or by early 2007.
“The supermarkets' initiative has had a strong influence on branded products,” Oliver Tickell notes. “Typically, branded products are more expensive than house brand products and so they have to maintain a perception of quality, including the quality of ingredients used.
“Every time I go to the supermarkets, I find something new, I find a product that has trans fat previously but is now trans fat free. Things are happening very fast,” Oliver Tickell adds.
Optimistic about trans fats in the UK
So far, the UK government has been reluctant to legislate compulsory trans fat labelling. In fact, Oliver Tickell reveals that the law, which applies throughout the European Union, is currently quite "strangely” worded such that even if companies wish to voluntarily declare the trans fat content, they may not be allowed to do so.
“The law states that you cannot declare the quantity of trans fat on the Nutrition Facts Label unless you make a claim about it, such as 'low in trans fats' or even 'high in trans fats', and then it is compulsory. The whole thing is so confusing that few manufacturers have bothered labelling trans fats at all.
“But now I think there is no need to formulate a labelling law for trans fats in the UK,” Oliver Tickell continues. “By the time such a law is formulated, there might not be any trans fats in packaged products left to be declared.”
Trans fats in the UK - a big gap
Still, there remains a big gap regarding trans fats in the UK. Food served in fast food restaurants, schools, cafeterias, hospitals, old age homes, pubs, fish and chips outlets and other places continue to be prepared with hydrogenated oils containing trans fats.
“These are huge sectors that continue to be left out and consumers never know if they are taking trans fats,” Oliver Tickell points out.
He is therefore pushing for a complete ban on trans fats in the UK, rather than just trans fat labelling.
“The experience of the packaged foods industry – and the experience of Denmark which has banned trans fats – show that trans fats can be removed from the food chain quite easily, at no cost to the public purse and without consumers having to pay higher prices,” Oliver Tickell says.
“The expertise is already there. It can be done.”
tfX, the campaign against trans fats in the UK
The campaign against trans fats in the UK was started in February 2004 when Oliver Tickell, a freelance journalist and campaigner on health and environment issues, started the website, tfX.
Oliver Tickell has since built quite a substantial website on trans fats in the UK, Europe and around the world.
And he happily reports that the level of consumer awareness about the dangers of trans fats has risen significantly in the three years since he launched the campaign against trans fats in the UK.
“Three or four years ago, British consumers hadn't the foggiest idea about trans fats,” Oliver Tickell says. “Today, most consumers probably know that trans fats are bad, even if they may not understand why.
“The message about the harm of trans fats has basically gotten through.”
Click here to read more about trans fats in the UK at the tfX website.
