Biscuits, wafers, soup concentrates, vegetable creams, crisps, French fries, and even powder milk. All these products contain harmful trans-fatty acids, which significantly increase the risk of a heart-attack or stroke. This dangerous content, which is not even labeled on packaging, is compared by many to cigarettes. The intake of five grams of trans-fatty acids per day significantly increases the risk of a stroke, similar to the effect of smoking from five to ten cigarettes.

What are trans-fatty acids?
Trans-fatty acids, or more widely known as trans fats, are a side product created in a chemical process when vegetable oil is transformed from a liquid to a solid state. Blaž Ciglič, PhD, from the Biotechnical Faculty, tells us that liquid fat is not always desired, "which is why in the second half of the 20th century it was discovered that we can make semi-solid fats, such as margarine, from unsaturated fatty-acids. And as the share of Cis fats decreased and the share of saturated fats increased, as a side product we created trans-fatty acids".

Scientists are still trying to determine whether natural trans-fatty acids are less harmful than those obtained through industrial hydrogenation. It is a fact though that our bodies do not need trans-fatty acids and that they can have harmful effects. "In general, a greater consumption of trans-fatty acids disturbs the metabolism of fats and leads to an increase of bad cholesterol, more platelet aggregation and increased blood pressure, which all influence the increase of cardiovascular diseases," tells us Vida Fajdiga Turk from the National Institute for Public Health.

Recent research points to the fact that the consumption of trans fats has a negative impact on pregnant women and the fetus, that it is linked to breast cancer and colon cancer, and leads to asthma and child allergies. So how can a consumer know if a product contains any trans-fatty acids? "He can’t. Not in Europe. He can only in the case if it says on the label that the product contains hydrogenated vegetable oil. But we don’t know how much of it there is," says Blaž Ciglič, PhD. Responding to a question about why the food industry uses such fats at all, food engineer Urša Vezjak, from the Biotechnical Education Centre in Ljubljana, says that "it’s mostly a case of making profits, as they substitute butter". According to some sources butter is more than four times more expensive.

From now on only up to two grams of trans fats
The new regulation, which will determine the highest allowed content of trans-fatty acids in food, will be binding for all Slovenian products and imported food, as well as for served meals in restaurants and food prepared at public institutions. "The regulation will limit the content of trans fats in food to 2 grams per 100 grams of all fats," said Marjeta Recek, PhD, the head of the Division for Communicable Diseases, Food and the Environment, at the Public Health Directorate.