Trans Tasman initiative on reducing transfats

The Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing, Christopher Pyne, has opened the inaugural meeting of the Australia New Zealand Collaboration on Transfats and said the collaboration was “an important public health initiative”.

Last October Food Standards Australia New Zealand, the National Heart Foundation, the Dietitians Association of Australia and the Australian Food and Grocery Council formed this collaboration to report on ways of reducing damaging transfats in the food supply.

The collaboration has now become a trans-Tasman initiative in line with Australia and New Zealand increasingly becoming a single market for food manufacturing.

Mr Pyne said there was a scientific link between the consumption of transfats and heart disease. Transfats not only increase bad cholesterol in our blood, a key indicator for heart disease, they may also decrease good cholesterol.

“This collaboration is chaired by Food Standards Australia New Zealand, which is conducting a formal scientific review of transfats in the food supply. It will be reporting back to the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council, which I chair, by May 2007.”

For more information visit http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/newsroom/factsheets/factsheets2006/transfattyacids24oct3388.cfm