Dr Kathryn Bradbury: Auckland University senior research fellow on many foods here not disclosing having trans-fats in them

Trans-fats are somewhat of a silent killer.

645,000 people died globally because of high TFA diets in 2019.

New University of Auckland analysis says many foods here have them, but don’t disclose them.

It might not be long until they’re banned altogether.

University of Auckland population health senior research fellow Dr Kathryn Bradbury joined Mike Hosking.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the things you want to avoid in your
diet is trans fats. Six hundred and forty five thousand
people die globally each year because of a high TFA diet,
and trouble is, a lot of the foods don't disclose them, so,
in other words, you don't even know they're in the
University of Auckland Population Health Senior research fellow doctor Catherine
Bradbury's with us on this. Catherine, very good morning to you, Marina. Basically,

(00:20):
it's biscuits, cakes, commercially cooked and produced stuff, isn't it, broadly?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yes, Yeah, those the types of foods that could have
transfat in them.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, if you labeled it. Here's my argument, even if
you put that on the back of the packet and
said there's transfats in this, I don't know, you wouldn't
eat a biscuit.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Possibly. But the thing is we just don't know really
because we found that only about fifteen percent of package
products in our safer markets said whether they had trans
fat in them or not. So you know, even if
you want to avoid them, you can't.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Really when you look at all that labeling, what are
they name it airs or do they just not put
it in because they don't have to at all.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, they don't have to. So on our food products,
we have to say how much energies in them, protein, carbohydrates,
total fat, and saturated fat, but you don't have to
say how much trans fat isn't there? So that's why
they don't normally. And then even in the ingredients list,
they can sort of just say things like vegetable oils,

(01:26):
and then it's very difficult to know if it's been
what we call partially hydrogenated, which means that there would
be transfat in it. So yeah, it's just really impossible
for someone to tell.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Of did that slip through the system Because we've had
this labeling argument for ages and there are labels and
there's lots of detail on the labels. How come trans
fats slip through the net?

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, well that's interesting. I mean we have been people
have been calling for for a long time to try
and tighten up those regulations. There's just sort of it's
just with the vegetable oils, they're allowed to just say
vegetable oils. They don't have to say the type of
oil and things isn't That's what's sort of weakened the
regulations at the moment, because that makes.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
It even more complicated because oils are oil. I mean,
you can have some very good oils, but you have
some deeply troubling oils.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah exactly, And so they they're not at the moment
required to say what exactly type of oil it is,
so you couldn't tell whether it was palm oil, for example,
they could just say vegetable oil, Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Is anyone looking to change any of this or is
life got a bit busy and complicated for us to
fix any of these problems?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Now? No, the Ministry for Primary Industries is actually at
the moment trying to determine different kind of options to
try and eliminate trans fat from our food supply because
of the who becommend that we take certain steps to
eliminate these kind of industrially produced transfats from our food suply.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Well, let's hope we do something about it. Catherine Precire,
doctor Catherine Bradbury out of Auckland University.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
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