JAKARTA – The World Health Organization (WHO) will apply a policy of banning industrially produced trans-fatty acid from global food supply chain in 2023.
To reach the goal, the WHO has also designed an action plan and global guideline to eliminate the trans fat from the global food supply chain through REPLACE (Review, Promote, Legislate, Assess, Create, and Enforce). Through the scheme of REPLACE, WHO provides six strategic actions to ensure the prompt, complete, and sustained elimination of industrially-produced trans fats from the global food supply chain.
The policy was taken as part of efforts to reduce millions of premature deaths caused by the consumption of foods containing the industrially produced trans fatty acids.
A variety of global researches have concluded that the consumption of the industrially produced trans fatty acids can trigger various diseases such as cardiovascular, atherosclerosis, obesity, diabetes type-2, and impaired fertility in women.
“The opportunity of palm oil to meet the global demand for healthy foods will be rising along with the implementation of the WHO policy to ban the trans fat,” Palm Oil Indonesia reported recently.
It reported that the palm oil will substitute the need of soft oil such as soybean oil and sunflower oil that have high content of trans fat due to their fully hydrogenated production process and partially hydrogenated production process.
Prof. Purwayitno Hariyadi stated in a book he authored that the content of trans fat in soybean oil that is produced through the hydrogenated process can reach up to 13 – 30 percent.
Quoted the same source, Dr. Puspo Edi Giriwono, a researcher of SEAFAST Centre, said that the USA government has also limited the use of soybean oil that is produced through the hydrogenated process and it has been substituted with the palm oil.
“Prof. Purwayitno Hariyadi, who is also Vice-Chair of Alimentarius Codex Commission, said that in several countries the palm oil has been used as the alternative to replace the vegetable oils that are produced through the Partially Hydrogenated Oil (PHO) that contains trans fat,” Palm Oil Indonesia reported in its website.
Previously, Prof. Purwayitno Hariyadi has stated that Indonesia as the world’s largest producer of palm oil should be serious in taking the opportunity of palm oil as the alternative to meet the global demand for trans-fat-free food along with the implementation of the WHO policy to eliminate the use of trans fats in 2023.
“The government should pay serious attention in taking the opportunity by designing a roadmap to implement the WHO policy and promote the palm oil as the alternative of food free from trans fat,” the Palm Oil Indonesia reported recently. (*)
Source: wartaekonomi.co.id
