Another 10 per cent of the foods in the database have been made with ingredients likely to contain trans fat. This means that fully 37 per cent of the foods in EWG’s extensive database, which covers a wide variety of items commonly available in supermarkets across the nation, probably or certainly contain a substance strongly implicated in heart disease.
Worse, in most cases, shoppers have no way to make an informed choice to avoid a product with trans fat. Only two per cent of the foods in EWG’s database admit on their labels that they contain trans fat, according to EWG analysis of information in EWG’s Food Scores, a comprehensive tool with extensive information on ingredients and potential contaminants.
The vast majority of foods with this substance escape notice by slipping through a federal regulatory loophole that permits trans fat content of less than half a gram per serving to be rounded off to zero. EWG found that 87 per cent of the over 7,500 foods containing partially hydrogenated oils – Americans’ principle dietary source of trans fats -- did not disclose that fact. Instead, the labels of more than 6,500 of these items rounded off their trans fat content to 0 gram.
Because of the trans fat loophole, thousands of nutrition labels on supermarket foods are misleading, and the consequences are serious. Those undisclosed half-gram squirts and dollops of invisible, hidden trans fat add up fast —and even faster for children, who need fewer calories than adults and should consume relatively less trans fat. A few slices of frozen pizza and a packaged cookie or two can spike a child’s trans fat intake to unhealthy levels. Serving size is critical – and it’s easy to underestimate. A person who eats an entire package with several small “servings” can consume multiple grams of trans fat at one time.
EWG’s findings, the most extensive look to date at hidden trans fats on supermarket shelves, are based on information collected in EWG’s Food Scores Database and App, unique tools that make it easier for consumers to avoid hidden trans fats in their food. Food Scores gives worse scores to products that contain partially hydrogenated oils, compared to similar foods that do not contain these harmful fats. In addition, Food Scores product pages alert consumers to the presence of ingredients that probably or definitely carry small amounts of trans fats, even when the manufacturers take advantage of the trans fat loophole with a nutrition facts panel that says, misleadingly, “Trans Fat 0.0 g.”
