You may have never heard of industrially produced trans fats, but chances are you have eaten them.

ITFAs can be found in everything from margarine and fried foods to baked goods and cooking oil.

Caribbean health advocates are calling for a ban on iFTAs because of their links to lifestyle diseases such as heart disease and strokes, leading causes of death in the Caribbean and Bermuda.

In 2022, Caribbean policymakers committed to the elimination of iTFAs from national and regional food supplies by December 31, but to date, no Caricom country has enacted legislation or regulation around this.

During a recent webinar, Caribbean Mobilising to Eliminate Industrially Produced Trans Fats, hosted by the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, Helen Royer, director of human and social development, Caricom secretariat, said banning iFTAs in the region would not be easy.

“A sustained effort will be required to raise awareness of the dangers of iTFAs to build support for the necessary regulatory policies,” she said.

The World Health Organisation states that there are 500,000 deaths worldwide each year as a result of eating iTFAs, with more than 40,000 of those deaths in the Americas.

In the webinar, New York university researcher Rasheed Perry discussed research he conducted in Jamaica to test for iTFAs and saturated fat content in common food products.

One third of the food products he analysed contained iTFAs and 104 out of 168 products claiming to be trans fat free, actually contained trans fats.

“Forty-four of these food items were made in Jamaica and the rest were made in the United States, Malaysia and other parts of the world,“ he said. “For our high fat containing foods, cooking oils were No 1, followed by condiments. In the confectionery group, 89 per cent had iTFAs at varying levels.”

This highlighted the potentially high levels of iTFAs in the Caribbean food supply and the need for validation of manufacturers’ labels.

Maisha Hutton, executive director of the HCC, emphasised that iTFA regulation is an important, highly cost-effective, feasible policy measure and reinforced civil society’s role in building public demand for iTFA regulation.

Countries such as Australia, Canada, Egypt and South Korea have already banned the use of iFTAs in foods in their countries. The substance cannot be eliminated entirely, but places such as Australia are now well below recommended limits in food.

In 2006, McDonald’s Australia replaced its liquid canola blend with one that contains less than 1 per cent trans fat.

“Implementing policies and legislation to ban partially hydrogenated oils and iTFAs will reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases in the Caribbean, decrease associated healthcare costs, and lower economic costs due to loss of productivity from related illnesses,” said Dean Chambliss, Caribbean subregional programme director of the Pan American Health Organisation.