Eliminating industrially-produced trans-fat is one of the simplest and most effective ways to save lives and create a healthier food supply
The elimination of industrially-produced trans-fat from the global food supply is a WHO priority and a target in the 13th General Programme of Work (GPW), which will guide the WHO through 2023.
As part of WHO’s efforts to provide support to governments to eliminate industrially-produced trans-fat from their nation’s food supply, and replace these harmful compounds with healthier fats and oils, the REPLACE action package was developed and launched in May 2018.
As per the recent release by WHO, “To meet this target, we call not only on governments’ commitment, but also on industry to commit and act to replace industrially-produced trans-fat with healthier fats and oils.”
WHO calls on the fats, oils and food industry, including the food service industry, to commit to the following:
- Reformulate foods to eliminate industrially-produced trans-fat: Set, commit to, and meet trans-fat elimination targets by 2023 or earlier for all products across global product lines, in line with the WHO recommendation for all food categories (<2 grams per 100 grams of total fat or oil in all foods) without replacement with saturated fat.
- Label trans-fat content: Implement trans-fat labelling on any pre-packaged food.
- Increase supply of healthier fats and oils: Increase the supply of replacement alternatives low in saturated fat.
- Evaluate commitments: Support the implementation of an independent evaluation to monitor the progress and achievement of commitments made, including disclosing annually the company volume of production of industrially-produced trans-fat and country-specific quantity of the volume of sales.
WHO says that, “There has been important progress moving from partially hydrogenated oils to healthier oils, particularly in high-income countries but much more needs to be done.”
Eliminating industrially-produced trans-fat is one of the simplest and most effective ways to save lives and create a healthier food supply.
There are 130 million babies born around the world each year. With industry’s commitment and cooperation, none of them will ever have to be exposed to the dangers of industrially-produced trans-fat by 2023.