According to an article published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, the answer is no. Read the article here. The investigation was conducted by a researcher from Harvard Medical School and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), one of my favorite organizations and publisher of the Nutrition Action Healthletter.
Trans fats have similar characteristics to saturated fats. With the trans fat labeling requirement in effect since 2006, and the NYC ban on trans fats, many were concerned that manufacturers and chefs would simply replace the trans fat in their products and recipes with saturated fat. If this were the case, would we really be accomplishing anything to improve our overall health?
The researchers conducted two evaluations of 83 reformulated supermarket and restaurant foods (from 1993-2006 and 2008-2009) and discovered that the majority of reformulated foods had less than 0.5g trans fat per serving (the level at which a manufacturer can claim "0g trans fat") and the average amount of saturated fat was " lower, unchanged, or only slightly higher (<0.5 g per serving) than before reformulation."
Keep in mind there are thousands and thousands of products out there and this analysis only closely examined 83 reformulated products...but I still hope this is an indicator of things moving in the right direction - or at least not a wrong one.
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