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New York City’s Trans Fat Ban To Take Effect Tuesday

Posted on: Monday, 30 June 2008, 13:00 CDT

New York City's trans fat ban goes into full effect on Tuesday, making the city the first in the nation to implement such rigorous rules. The ban applies to almost all prepared food in bakeries, restaurants, salad bars, cafeterias, food carts and salad bars.

After a three-month grace period, those who violate the new law and get caught face a $2,000 fine.

The city banned trans fat in cooking oils last year, and chefs who relied on the artery-clogging substance to make their crackers crispy and pie crusts flaky have labored to modify old recipes without damaging the flavor, texture or color of their pastries. Unlike frying oils, whose main purpose is to conduct heat, the trans fat laden shortening is a major contributor to taste and texture.

However, it appears that few, if any, foods are being eliminated as a result of the new ban.   For examples, fast food bellwethers from McDonald's to Taco Bell say they have successfully eliminated trans fats without having to drop a single item from their menu.

Baking supply companies have developed a variety of replacements for the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that are the largest source of trans fats.  In fact, even Crisco is not made of Crisco anymore, instead the reformulated product now boasts "zero grams of trans fat per serving."

Even the cannoli has been retooled.  After four months of sometimes exasperating experimentation, New York's biggest maker of fried dough shells for the scrumptious Italian dessert finally produced a trans-fat-free version that is just as crisp and tasty as the original.

"There is a little difference in taste," acknowledged Mauricio Vasquez, general manager of Ariola Foods.  The Queens-based company has been making pastries for 85 years.

"If you weren't familiar with the shell beforehand, you'd never know the difference," he added, during an interview with the Associated Press.

Thomas Frieden, the New York City Health Commissioner who drove the anti-trans fat initiative, said it is too soon to know how many of the city’s establishments would be in compliance of the new law by Tuesday.   But the department had received only a few complaints so far, he said.

"We think it is going extremely well," he said.

Americans have been baking with trans fat laden vegetable shortening since the invention of Crisco.  And while there is no shortage of substitutes, such as butter, palm oil and a wide variety of new oil blends, some chefs are struggling to adjust.

"We're banging our heads against the wall right now," Manny Alaimo, an owner of Brooklyn’s esteemed Villabate Pasticceria, told the Associated Press.

“Italian breads and cookies made with the zero-trans-fat shortening just haven't come out right,” he said, adding that a few fastidious customers had complained about subtle changes in taste and texture.

"It's going to be a really bumpy. People are just going to have to get used to it," he said.

These concerns have kept other cities from enacting similar bans.

In Philadelphia, family owned bakeries protested so loudly that authorities made them exempt from last year’s trans fat ban.

But the widest impact of the New York City ban may be among fast food restaurant chains, many of which have transformed their recipes nationwide.

For example, last October Dunkin Donuts voluntarily eliminated trans fats from its doughnuts, months ahead of the deadline.  The company had been experimenting with replacement oils since 2003, testing 28 substitutes before finally settling on a new blend of soybean, palm and cottonseed oil.  Before formally announcing the switch, the company sold 50 million trial doughnuts unbeknownst to customers to gauge their reaction.   But customers didn't notice the change, Dunkin Donuts said.

Laura Stanley, a consultant who has been working with smaller New York restaurants seeking to adjust to the trans fat ban, told the AP there doesn't seem to be a food that can't be saved.

Stanley was part of a program at New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn that tested replacement ingredients, conducted training and developed solutions for particularly tricky recipes.

"We were pleasantly surprised," she said.

"We'd anticipated a lot of problems with flavor, but for most of these items the new products performed fine."

But despite the success in implementing the replacement oils, there is concern about the high levels of saturated fat content in trans fat substitutes such as palm oil.  Indeed, some research indicates these fats might be just as harmful as trans fats.

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On the Net:

NYC Trans Fat Help Center

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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