Food Industry Exposes Five Billion People to Toxic Chemicals that Kill

Industrially produced trans fat is responsible for up to 500,000 premature deaths from coronary heart disease each year, according to WHO. Credit: Shutterstock.By Baher KamalMADRID, Feb 10 2023 (IPS) The food industry continues to intensively use toxic chemicals in their products, some of them provoking heart diseases and death. Trans fat is just one of them, adding to contaminating fertilisers, pesticides, microplastics and a long etcetera. “Trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food,” warns Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), informing that trans fat has no known benefits, and substantial health risks that incur enormous costs for health systems. “Put simply, trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food.”   What is trans fat? Trans fat, or trans-unsaturated fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in food. Of all the fats, trans fat is the worst for health. Used intensively it increases the risks of heart disease and death. “Put simply, trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food.” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Trans fat can be found in commercial baked goods, such as cakes, cookies, fried foods, margarine, packaged foods, cooking oils and spreads among many other products. Industrially produced trans fat is responsible for up to 500,000 prematur...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Food and Agriculture Global Headlines Health TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news