Trans fats: the ingredient you cannot taste and cannot avoid
Fifty three countries have a rule that meets the WHO threshold. Uganda does not, and the reason is mostly that nobody has pushed.
Industrially produced trans fatty acids do one commercially useful thing: they extend shelf life cheaply. They also raise cardiovascular risk more reliably than almost anything else in the food supply, and unlike salt or sugar you cannot detect them by taste.
The threshold
WHO best practice is two grams of industrially produced trans fat per hundred grams of total fat. Fifty three countries now meet it.
Where Uganda is
Our baseline sampling of commonly consumed fats, oils and baked goods found levels well above that threshold in several product categories. The relevant national standards are now under technical review, which is the step that has to happen before any regulation has something to point at.
Why this one is winnable
Reformulation is technically straightforward and the alternatives are commercially viable. This is not a case where industry has to be dragged. It is a case where nobody has yet been asked.
