FDA Wants To Ban Trans Fat From All Processed Food

FDA Wants To Ban Trans Fat From All Processed Food

by Paul SheaNovember 7, 2013

Big changes may be afoot in the food industry. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has revealed that it wants to ban the use of trans fats in all processed foods. The move is not set in stone just yet, but there are indications that it could become a concrete regulation in the coming months. According to the FDA the consumption of trans fats has declined drastically in recent years as awareness about the dangers they pose pervaded consumer and producer mentalities. The cultural change has not been big enough to prevent the deaths of millions, and the agency is now looking to ban the substances by law.FDA trans fat ban

The FDA wants to get rid of trans fat because the substance causes cardiovascular problems. Americans have reduced their consumption of trans fats by around 80% in the last decade because of better education about the substance, and producers volunteering to reduce or remove the substance from products.

The agency is opening a sixty-day review process in order to collect more information about trans fat usage from the public and food producers. After the review process is over the FDA may decide to ban the use of trans fats, or it may decide to abandon the idea. If a ban is brought in it would likely be in the form of a slow process that comes into effect over a number of years.

Trans fat danger

The FDA says that a reduction could prevent up to 20,000 heart attacks every year. The agency said that 7,000 lives could be saved each year by cutting down the amount of trans fats that Americans consume every day. Trans fat is a danger to the lives of millions of people. Banning the substance will hit parts of the food industry, but it could be good for the overall health of the country.

The ban of trans fats is going to be a difficult measure to pass for the FDA. The agency will have to battle with powerful food producers who do not want to be forced to change their processes and recipes. If the measure does manage to get through it will change the way parts of the food industry operate. It’s certainly a move that investors should watch out for.

About bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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