EEUU: Spud industry in good shape for FDA trans fat phase-out, expert says

The potato industry has been proactive in finding healthier oils for fried products and should have little trouble complying with a recent federal mandate phasing out cholesterol-causing partially hydrogenated oils over the next three years, an industry expert says.

Nonetheless, images of french fries have been commonly paired lately with information about the health hazards of trans-fatty acids, according to Maureen Storey, president and CEO of the Alliance for Potato Research and Education.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a declaratory order on June 16 that partially hydrogenated oils — those containing trans-fatty acids that have been chemically changed from a liquid to solid state at room temperature — are no longer generally recognized as safe.

Storey explained solid trans fats are needed in many baked goods, and companies that wish to continue using them will have to petition the government to continue using them as a food additive.

Within the potato industry, however, usage of trans fats has been reduced by 88 percent from peak levels, according to a study that Storey cited.

But Storey believes the public hasn’t taken notice of the potato industry’s dramatic improvement. Storey said a NBC Nightly News story about the trans fat phase-out included footage of french fries. Even the American Heart Association, which certifies Idaho potatoes as heart healthy and partnered in the 2014 Great Big Idaho Potato Truck tour, included a photo of fries with information about trans fats on its website, until APRE convinced the organization to change the image.

“The oils changed a long time ago,” Storey said. “That seems to have been unacknowledged or ignored.”

Seeking to “set the record straight” about fried potato products, APRE sponsored a roundtable discussion with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, featuring 10 new research papers relating to fats and oils. The papers were published in the May issue of the journal Advances in Nutrition. The paper Storey authored for the roundtable documents the steady decline in trans fat usage within the spud industry from 2005 until today.

Other papers examined how fats enable the body to properly absorb vitamins, and how different types of fats have varying effects on cholesterol and other heart disease indicators. A Pennsylvania State University paper referenced an Italian study in which participants consumed a quart of olive oil per week, with no weight gain or elevated blood lipids.

“There’s research now telling us maybe we don’t need to reduce our total fat as we once thought,” Storey said. “It’s the type of fat that people need to be looking at.”

Half of APRE’s budget comes from the U.S. Potato Board.

“This goes to our key objective as USPB, that potatoes are healthy,” said USPB spokesman David Fraser. “They are not the vial, starchy food they’ve been made out to be.”