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Following is a question by the Hon Albert Cheng and a reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York chow, in the Legislative Council today (January 31):
Question:
It has been reported that since artificial trans fats will increase the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases, the use of such substance in food production will be banned in restaurants in New York City (NYC) of the United States of America (US) from July this year. In addition, a number of restaurant chains in US have also announced that they will reduce the use of artificial trans fats or switch to other types of vegetable oil in food production. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether it has studied the trend and causes of Hong Kong people suffering from cardiovascular diseases in recent years; if it has, whether the causes of the diseases are related to the consumption of food containing artificial trans fats;
(b) whether it plans to follow the practice of NYC authority to ban the use of artificial trans fats in food production in restaurants; and
(c) whether there is requirement that the level of artificial trans fats should be specified on the packages of imported food and local food products to facilitate easy identification by the public?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) Trans fatty acid, commonly known also as trans fat, is an unsaturated fat. Milk and fat of cattle and sheep contain a small amount of naturally occurring trans fat. But most of the trans fat found in food comes from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, such as shortening and margarine. They are common ingredients found in fried food and baked food such as biscuits, cookies, cakes, pastries and chips. The amount of trans fat increases during the hydrogenation process when vegetable oil is turned from liquid form into partial solid state. In terms of its effect on human health, trans fat is similar to saturated fat in that it raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (so-called bad cholesterol) level. It also lowers the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (so-called good cholesterol), which increases the risk of coronary heart disease.
Cardiovascular disease is the second leading cause of deaths in Hong Kong. In 2005, 9 302 registered deaths were attributed to cardiovascular diseases, which accounted for 24% of total registered deaths. In fact, many risk factors of cardiovascular diseases can be avoided or reduced. They include social factors, such as smoking, insufficient exercise and being under constant pressure, and health factors, such as obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes. In view of these, the Department of Health has commissioned the Chinese University of Hong Kong to undertake a cardiovascular health survey to study cardiovascular health as well as the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and its related risk factors, such as high blood lipid, high blood sugar, overweight and obesity in Hong Kong population. The results will be published later this year. Trans fat is not covered in the study.
(b)&(c) At present, there is no law that prohibits the sale of food that contains trans fat and no requirement to stipulate that trans fat contents in food must be listed on the package labels of imported or manufactured food. However, we are working with the trade to pursue a consensus on requiring that the contents of saturated fat, mono-unsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat and cholesterol must comply with the relevant requirements and must be listed on labels of those prepackaged food which makes claims related to fats or cholesterol, upon the full implementation of nutrition labelling scheme. At present, we do not have any plan to follow the example of New York and prohibit the use of trans fat in local restaurants, but the Centre for Food Safety will closely monitor the latest international developments regarding regulation of trans fat.
Ends/Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:10
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