man sues to ban selling oreo cookies in california
Posted: Mon May 12, 2003 5:59 pm
the food police are coming people.
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Lawsuit seeks to ban sale of Oreos to children in California
Nabisco taken to task over trans fat's effects
Kim Severson, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, May 12, 2003
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Oreo cookies should be banned from sale to children in California, according to a lawsuit filed by a San Francisco attorney who claims that trans fat -- the stuff that makes the chocolate cookies crisp and their filling creamy -- is so dangerous children shouldn't eat it.
Stephen Joseph, who filed the suit against Nabisco last week in Marin County Superior Court, is a public interest lawyer who last battled the city to remove graffiti from traffic signs.
He took up the trans fat battle after reading about the dangerous artificial fat in several stories published by The Chronicle that showed how trans fat is hidden in many of the popular snack foods Americans eat. Joseph also believes his father's death from heart disease was caused in part by a lifelong diet of margarine and other foods made from trans fat.
The suit, the first of its kind in the country, asks for an injunction ordering Kraft Foods to desist from selling Nabisco Oreo Cookies to children in California, because the cookies are made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, also called trans fat.
Partially hydrogenated oil is in about 40 percent of the food on grocery store shelves, including most cookies, crackers and microwave popcorn, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But doctors and government researchers believe it is linked to several debilitating diseases and might be one of the worst ingredients in the American diet -- in part because we eat so much of it without knowing.
The Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, last summer confirmed that trans fat is directly associated with heart disease and increases in LDL cholesterol, the kind that can clog arteries. Because of that, the institute report said there is no safe amount of trans fat in the diet.
Prompted by those findings, and after being petitioned by health advocates, the Food and Drug Administration decided to force food manufacturers to list trans fat among the other fats and nutrients printed on the side of food packages. But the rule has been challenged by food manufacturers. A final version is pending.
As it stands, U.S. consumers have no idea how much trans fat is in food because it isn't required on nutrition labels. Even products marked "low in cholesterol" or "low in saturated fat" might have high levels of trans fat.
Providing information about trans fat on labels could prevent 7,600 to 17,100 cases of coronary heart disease and 2,500 to 5,600 deaths every year -- not only because people would be able to choose healthier foods but because manufacturers could choose to reduce trans fat amounts rather than list high levels on nutrition panels, the FDA has estimated.
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Lawsuit seeks to ban sale of Oreos to children in California
Nabisco taken to task over trans fat's effects
Kim Severson, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, May 12, 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oreo cookies should be banned from sale to children in California, according to a lawsuit filed by a San Francisco attorney who claims that trans fat -- the stuff that makes the chocolate cookies crisp and their filling creamy -- is so dangerous children shouldn't eat it.
Stephen Joseph, who filed the suit against Nabisco last week in Marin County Superior Court, is a public interest lawyer who last battled the city to remove graffiti from traffic signs.
He took up the trans fat battle after reading about the dangerous artificial fat in several stories published by The Chronicle that showed how trans fat is hidden in many of the popular snack foods Americans eat. Joseph also believes his father's death from heart disease was caused in part by a lifelong diet of margarine and other foods made from trans fat.
The suit, the first of its kind in the country, asks for an injunction ordering Kraft Foods to desist from selling Nabisco Oreo Cookies to children in California, because the cookies are made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, also called trans fat.
Partially hydrogenated oil is in about 40 percent of the food on grocery store shelves, including most cookies, crackers and microwave popcorn, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But doctors and government researchers believe it is linked to several debilitating diseases and might be one of the worst ingredients in the American diet -- in part because we eat so much of it without knowing.
The Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, last summer confirmed that trans fat is directly associated with heart disease and increases in LDL cholesterol, the kind that can clog arteries. Because of that, the institute report said there is no safe amount of trans fat in the diet.
Prompted by those findings, and after being petitioned by health advocates, the Food and Drug Administration decided to force food manufacturers to list trans fat among the other fats and nutrients printed on the side of food packages. But the rule has been challenged by food manufacturers. A final version is pending.
As it stands, U.S. consumers have no idea how much trans fat is in food because it isn't required on nutrition labels. Even products marked "low in cholesterol" or "low in saturated fat" might have high levels of trans fat.
Providing information about trans fat on labels could prevent 7,600 to 17,100 cases of coronary heart disease and 2,500 to 5,600 deaths every year -- not only because people would be able to choose healthier foods but because manufacturers could choose to reduce trans fat amounts rather than list high levels on nutrition panels, the FDA has estimated.
Maybe we could start an Oreo smuggling ring. Adult toys from California to Alabama and Oreos to California on the return trip! 
