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CNN Live Today

The Hidden Fat

Aired July 09, 2003 - 11:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We are going to talk some health news now. All that food that tastes so good, well, perhaps there's a reason that it does and it shouldn't, and it might be changing. The federal government is getting involved in this. We are talking about trans fats, and we've got Elizabeth Cohen is here to talk to us more about that.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, you need to know about this.

KAGAN: Why is that, Elizabeth?

COHEN: Because I can still smell the chocolate chip cookies that you scarfed down during the break.

KAGAN: That I'm hiding.

COHEN: Busted. Various trans fat in that crumb, chances are.

But if you look at the label when you bought it, you wouldn't have found it on there. It wouldn't have said it.

KAGAN: Here's the deal, Leon gave me this cookie.

COHEN: Leon wants to clog your arteries.

KAGAN: Very tasty. But it is a serious subject, and that's why the FDA.

COHEN: It's a very serious subject, because there's lots of different foods, microwave popcorn, cookies, crackers, all sorts of foods, fried fish, fried -- any kind of fried food that will have a great deal of trans fat, but you would never know it, because when you look at the label, it's not there.

Well, today the federal government is announcing that they are going to start requiring food manufacturers to label trans fats, to say that it's in their products.

Let's look at an old label and new label for a popular food, Oreo cookies. Right now, an Oreo cookie label will say 7 grams of total fat, and 1.5 grams of saturated fat. So people will think, wow, the difference between 7 and 1.5, that must mean the rest is good fat, because they label the bad fat. So you think, oh, that's not really so bad.

But look at the new label. This is what the new label will look like: It will say 7 grams total, 1.5 grams saturated and 2.5 grams of trans fat. You can see that highlighted at the bottom. So when you add that, you can see actually that's quite a bit of bad fat. You have got the saturated fat put together with the trans fat. Both of those are bad fats because they clog your arteries. The other kinds of fats, like a monounsaturateed fat, they don't clog your artery.

So the government is saying, if you want to put these artery- clogging fat in the foods you need to put it on the label this will go into effect January 1st, 2006.

KAGAN: And Why are they waiting until January 2006? I can eat a lot of cookies and bad food between now and then.

COHEN: That's right, they're waiting until January 1st, 2006 because they say that food companies need time to reformulate their products, they need time to see how much trans fat is in there, because chances are they don't know, they never had to look.the government is hoping that they will then be able to reformulate the products to make it have less trans fat.

We talked with Tommy Thompson earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICE SECRETARY: We are expecting companies are going to say, we want to make sure we got the best product out there possible, then we'll start competing with each other, and they will therefore start reducing the trans fats in their particular products, which of course will also help the healthiness of the food that people consume.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So again, these are going to be required for January 1, 2006. And in the meantime, some products have decided that they will reformulate before then. For the most part, they haven't.

KAGAN: Well, it's all very interesting information, but I really don't have a scale of -- I see 2 grams of -- 2.6 grams of trans fat, but I don't have any kind of perspective of how much is bad. How are the new labels going to help us make better choices?

COHEN: I will give you some examples with food that tells you how many grams of trans fat they have in them. If you eat these eight fish sticks, and they are fried, it's not the fish that gives you the trans fat, it's the fried that gives you the trans fat. If you ate these eight fish sticks for lunch, and let's say you had the hash browns for breakfast.

KAGAN: Could happen.

COHEN: Could happen.

And then you decided for dessert you would have the three Oreo cookies, that is all the bad fat you are supposed to have in one day. That's it, those three things -- the hash browns, the fish sticks and the Oreos. That is all the bad fats you are supposed to have in one day.

Now before, you couldn't figure that out, because they didn't label it that way. But now, or at least starting in 2006, they are supposed to label it that way, and so you'll know, you'll be able to do the math yourself.

KAGAN: OK, looking forward to that and making better choices, and hopefully not getting caught eating chocolate chip cookies on national television.

COHEN: Eat Leon's raisins instead.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired July 9, 2003 - 11:13   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We are going to talk some health news now. All that food that tastes so good, well, perhaps there's a reason that it does and it shouldn't, and it might be changing. The federal government is getting involved in this. We are talking about trans fats, and we've got Elizabeth Cohen is here to talk to us more about that.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, you need to know about this.

KAGAN: Why is that, Elizabeth?

COHEN: Because I can still smell the chocolate chip cookies that you scarfed down during the break.

KAGAN: That I'm hiding.

COHEN: Busted. Various trans fat in that crumb, chances are.

But if you look at the label when you bought it, you wouldn't have found it on there. It wouldn't have said it.

KAGAN: Here's the deal, Leon gave me this cookie.

COHEN: Leon wants to clog your arteries.

KAGAN: Very tasty. But it is a serious subject, and that's why the FDA.

COHEN: It's a very serious subject, because there's lots of different foods, microwave popcorn, cookies, crackers, all sorts of foods, fried fish, fried -- any kind of fried food that will have a great deal of trans fat, but you would never know it, because when you look at the label, it's not there.

Well, today the federal government is announcing that they are going to start requiring food manufacturers to label trans fats, to say that it's in their products.

Let's look at an old label and new label for a popular food, Oreo cookies. Right now, an Oreo cookie label will say 7 grams of total fat, and 1.5 grams of saturated fat. So people will think, wow, the difference between 7 and 1.5, that must mean the rest is good fat, because they label the bad fat. So you think, oh, that's not really so bad.

But look at the new label. This is what the new label will look like: It will say 7 grams total, 1.5 grams saturated and 2.5 grams of trans fat. You can see that highlighted at the bottom. So when you add that, you can see actually that's quite a bit of bad fat. You have got the saturated fat put together with the trans fat. Both of those are bad fats because they clog your arteries. The other kinds of fats, like a monounsaturateed fat, they don't clog your artery.

So the government is saying, if you want to put these artery- clogging fat in the foods you need to put it on the label this will go into effect January 1st, 2006.

KAGAN: And Why are they waiting until January 2006? I can eat a lot of cookies and bad food between now and then.

COHEN: That's right, they're waiting until January 1st, 2006 because they say that food companies need time to reformulate their products, they need time to see how much trans fat is in there, because chances are they don't know, they never had to look.the government is hoping that they will then be able to reformulate the products to make it have less trans fat.

We talked with Tommy Thompson earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICE SECRETARY: We are expecting companies are going to say, we want to make sure we got the best product out there possible, then we'll start competing with each other, and they will therefore start reducing the trans fats in their particular products, which of course will also help the healthiness of the food that people consume.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So again, these are going to be required for January 1, 2006. And in the meantime, some products have decided that they will reformulate before then. For the most part, they haven't.

KAGAN: Well, it's all very interesting information, but I really don't have a scale of -- I see 2 grams of -- 2.6 grams of trans fat, but I don't have any kind of perspective of how much is bad. How are the new labels going to help us make better choices?

COHEN: I will give you some examples with food that tells you how many grams of trans fat they have in them. If you eat these eight fish sticks, and they are fried, it's not the fish that gives you the trans fat, it's the fried that gives you the trans fat. If you ate these eight fish sticks for lunch, and let's say you had the hash browns for breakfast.

KAGAN: Could happen.

COHEN: Could happen.

And then you decided for dessert you would have the three Oreo cookies, that is all the bad fat you are supposed to have in one day. That's it, those three things -- the hash browns, the fish sticks and the Oreos. That is all the bad fats you are supposed to have in one day.

Now before, you couldn't figure that out, because they didn't label it that way. But now, or at least starting in 2006, they are supposed to label it that way, and so you'll know, you'll be able to do the math yourself.

KAGAN: OK, looking forward to that and making better choices, and hopefully not getting caught eating chocolate chip cookies on national television.

COHEN: Eat Leon's raisins instead.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com