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FDA declares trans fats no longer safe to eat; partially-hydrogenated oils to be banned from nearly all foods

Sunday, November 10, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
Tags: trans fats, FDA ban, partially-hydrogated oils

Trans fats

(NaturalNews) The FDA is on a roll. Barely two week after announcing new quality control standards for pet food manufacturers, the agency has declared that trans fats are no longer safe to consume. A ban of the toxic substance is in the works, and the FDA will spearhead the eventual removal of this disease-promoting ingredient from the food supply.

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its preliminary determination that partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the primary dietary source of artificial trans fat in processed foods, are not 'generally recognized as safe' for use in food," the FDA has now announced. "If the FDA finalizes its preliminary determination, PHOs would be considered 'food additives' and could not be used in food unless authorized by regulation."

I can hardly believe my own ears when I hear myself saying the FDA has now done two incredibly positive things back-to-back. But as a long-time critic of the FDA, I've also earned the right to applaud them when they do something right, and removing trans fats from the food supply is hugely important to public health.

Partially-hydrogenated oils have been killing Americans for decades

Trans fats (found in partially-hydrogenated oils) cause heart disease, diabetes and many other chronic degenerative conditions. They exist only for the convenience of junk food manufacturers who want a shelf-stable fat that won't liquefy and leak out of their junk processed foods. Trans fats -- which are usually made from genetically modified soybean oil -- are the perfect junk food ingredient because they taste fatty yet they are shelf-stable and resist rancidity. Some people refer to them as "plasticized" fats.

Nearly all so-called "vegetable shortening" products are almost entirely made from partially-hydrogenated oils (and are therefore loaded with trans fats).

For decades, the junk food industry has poisoned its own customers with trans fats, sodium nitrite, MSG, aspartame, toxic heavy metals, toxic preservative chemicals, artificial food colors and much more. Eventually, all these poisons need to come out of the food supply, and the FDA has surprisingly taken a huge, positive step in that direction by removing trans fats from the GRAS list.

The food companies will despise this decision, by the way, making it one of the very few decisions the FDA makes that is not in the interests of big business.

Banning toxic food ingredients is a proper role of government

In the debate about the proper role of government, this kind of food safety decision by the FDA demonstrates the appropriate, limited role of centralized authority. My philosophy has always been that government needs to stop regulating individuals (stop telling me what insurance to buy!) and start regulating global corporations (stop dumping mercury into the river!).

Even among those of us who believe in small, decentralized government, when it comes to food safety and environmental safety, there is a legitimate role for a central authority to force corporations to stop poisoning the people and the planet. Without that authority, food companies never would have even agreed to list ingredients on food labels! And they would still be using every deadly chemical, coloring agent and preservative that has already been banned by the FDA. So in these limited situations, government authority really can help protect the public, if applied responsibly and in the public interest.

But the FDA, of course, often goes too far with its censorship of truthful health claims for dietary supplements. The damage FDA does to public health from those actions may even be greater than the help FDA provides to the public by banning toxic ingredients. If we really hope to experience a leap forward in public health, we must end the FDA-enforced censorship of truthful health claims for foods, superfoods, herbs and dietary supplements. If a health benefit for a vitamin is true, why can't a vitamin company simply tell the truth?

The FDA's current position, as a matter of fact, is that there is no such thing as any vitamin, mineral, herb or natural substance that has any ability whatsoever to prevent, cure or treat any disease or health condition. That's not merely absurd; it's hopelessly outdated. Everybody knows that vitamin C cures scurvy, or that vitamin D prevents and cures rickets. There are thousands of natural foods and substances with genuine curative properties, yet the FDA recognizes none of them.

So while on one hand the FDA is making this decision to ban trans fats from the food supply -- a GOOD thing! -- the agency is simultaneously enforcing a "thought monopoly" on the entire nation by silencing dietary supplement companies from stating scientifically-validated truths about beneficial nutrients and supplements.

If only we could get the FDA to act in the interests of the public all the time, eh?

Read more from the FDA:
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/Press...

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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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