iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Experts say that even if the nutritional label on your food may not indicate that it contains trans fat, it may still be leading you to eat trans fat.
Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in their study, published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, that a number of products featured misleading nutritional labels. Researchers looked at the ingredients and labels of 4,340 packaged foods and found that many items contained partially hydrogenated oils, which are themselves trans fats. Yet, 84 percent of those items that contained partially hydrogenated oils claimed to contain zero grams of trans fat.
The reason for the misleading labels is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration policy, which allows food manufacturers to label products as having zero grams of trans fat if the serving size contains less than half a gram.
For example, even though a package of Chips Ahoy may be labeled as having no trans fat, for every three cookies you eat, you could be eating up to 0.5 grams of trans fat.
In 2013, the FDA issued a statement saying that partially hydrogenated oils should no longer be generally recognized as safe.
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