GUPTA: Now, none of this is a done deal yet. There’s a 60-day public comment period. The FDA’s going to consider concerns, suggestions that anybody including the manufacturers might have.
But, again, this is a pretty big deal. I want to talk more about this with CNN Eatocracy managing editor Kat Kinsman.
Welcome back to the program.
KAT KINSMAN, CNN EATOCRACY: Thanks, Sanjay.
GUPTA: What are we talking about with trans fats? Which foods are the worst offenders here?
KINSMAN: Well, a lot of them are sort of your treat foods, microwave popcorn, frozen pizzas, frosting in a can, coffee creamers — they’re little things that probably don’t make up the bulk of your diet but they might make up the treat portion of your diet, except for margarine which is a fairly significant part of often a household’s cooking.
GUPTA: So, how do you — how do you see our landscape of food sort of changing, then, when these types of foods go away? Do they go away?
KINSMAN: Well, you know, there’s still going to be a certain amount of allowable trans fats, and there are also naturally occurring trans fats that happen in an animal’s body, but as for the artificial stuff, funny thing is, New York City banned trans fats in restaurants and in bakeries back in 2007.
Now, New Yorkers we’re a pretty cantankerous bunch, we yell a lot about things that displease us, and the funny thing is the follow-up studies found that New Yorkers didn’t actually notice the difference all that much, which is — but there was a significant health benefit that they found that people were eating a fair amount less trans fat but not necessarily noticing the taste difference.
So, it’s incumbent upon the manufacturers to be able to do that pretty seamlessly and put in some more beneficial fats or at least less detrimental fats into these products that we’re very, very used to in our diet.
I was silly and didn’t grab the video from the server in time, but you can read the rest at Sanjay Gupta MD: Back From The Dead; Banning Trans Fats; Getting Dressed in a “Snap”; “Low-T” Therapy