MANILA, PHILIPPINES — A chemical analysis of 564 food products sold in local markets found that 17 percent of the products or brands had high trans fatty acid or TFA content posing health risk to consumers.
Michael Pelagio, a science research specialist of the Department of Science and Technology-Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) Chemical Laboratory, said that oils and fats such as sesame oil and mayonnaise, unsalted butter, all-purpose cream, and bread and pastry products such as cookies and doughnuts had TFA content of more than two grams per 100 gram serving.
“Based on our results, 17 percent of sample foods contains more than two grams per 100 gram fat,” Pelagio said in his presentation last Wednesday of their study “Trans-fat Content in Select Commonly Consumed Foods in the Philippines” at Day 1 of the two-day DOST-FNRI Seminar Series 2023 at the Dusit Thani Manila hotel in Makati City.
“Five hundred sixty four samples were analyzed for TFA content. Average results in food category showed that fats and oils had the highest TFA content, followed by milk and dairy products,” Pelagio said.
“In the ranking of samples, it showed that all butter samples had high TFA content,” he added.
“It is worth noting that foods highlighted, are ready to eat and presumably contain the highest amounts of industrial produced trans fatty acids,” he said.
“It is also noticeable that more than half of the foods are ready to eat, where there’s a high chance of going beyond the required serving,” Pelagio pointed out.
He shared that a ranking of the food samples for highest TFA content showed that Brand A, B and C of unsalted butter were in the top 5, as well as a brand of oatmeal cookies, a brand of mayonnaise, a sesame oil brand, a sugar-coated doughnut brand, a brand of all-purpose cream, a brand of corned beef and a brand of a beef burger patty.
Pelagio recalled that in 2021, the Department of Health had issued Administrative Order 39 mandating the regulation of TFA content in packaged foods, and pushing for replacement strategies as well as increasing awareness of the adverse health impact of this on people’s health.
This DOH order consequently led to the Food and Drug Administration to issue FDA Circular No. 2021-028 banning partially hydrogenated oil and foods with more than two grams of TFA per 100 gram fat content, as well as mandating the labeling of TFA content in pre-packaged foods.
In his presentation, Pelagio said that regulation of TFA content in food was spurred by a review study that was issued back in 2006 that proved that intake of more than 2.2 grams of trans fat can increase the risk of contracting coronary heart disease or CHD.
“And fast forward to today, CHD is still the leading cause of death as of the first quarter of 2022, according to the data of the Philippine Statistics Authority,” Pelagio said.
The alarming situation, he said, had spurred the World Health Organization to launch a global action plan dubbed Replace which aimed to eliminate industrially produced trans fats by 2023.
