As the awareness of the health risks posed by trans fat grows, Virginia Tech Dining Services announced this week that trans fat was eliminated from several of its menu items.
"The most recent change has been to change the frying oil at West End Market and the butter-flavored oil used in all of our dining centers," Virginia Tech Administrative Dietician Jenny Lindsey said. "The frying oil at all the dining centers other than West End was already trans fat free, so we only needed to change the oil at West End. It was different because of the large amount of frying that they do there."
"In addition, as we now look at new products, they must be trans fat free in order to be considered," Lindsey said.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, trans fat, or trans fatty acid, is created when manufacturers add hydrogen to vegetable oil in a process meant to prolong shelf life and add flavor to foods. Vegetable shortenings, fried foods, pastries, crackers, cookies and other snack foods often contain trans fats.
Consumption of trans fat poses a health threat by raising low-density lipoprotein, known as "bad" cholesterol levels, causing an increase in risk for coronary heart disease, a leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the FDA.
These health risks associated with trans fat prompted Tech to reexamine its menu options.
"We need to be responsible for the value of nutrition," said Mark Bratton, executive chef of West End Market. "We have to balance the safety and the quality … We need to be out on the forefront that we are always ensuring our guests nutritional value."
Tech is not the only university to take steps to eliminate trans fat from its menus. The University of Virginia made similar changes in August 2006, said Paula Caravati, nutritionist for UVa's Dining Services.
"In the preparation, we're using a zero trans fat oil in all the dining halls," Caravati said."We are now in the process of taking trans fat out of all of our bakery products, since bakery products are usually a major source of trans fat. We made a decision to produce a number of healthy bran breads, which have a zero trans fat content, and we recently decided to use donuts which are zero trans fat.
Universities such as Tech and UVa are following a national trend in which food manufacturers, restaurants and even supermarkets are removing trans fat from their products.
In October 2006, Kentucky Fried Chicken announced plans to convert all of its 5,500 U.S. locations to zero grams trans fat cooking oil.Taco Bell followed suit in November 2006, announcing its 4,200 U.S. restaurants would convert to zero grams trans fat canola oil for frying.
More recently in January 2007, Starbucks announced plans to cut trans fat from its products.
Though the amount of trans fat free alternatives continues to grow, the availability of such products is the most difficult challenge facing universities wishing to offer trans fat free options.
"We have wanted to do this for awhile, but there were no products available to us that met our standards," Lindsey said.
Caravati agreed that offering more trans fat free options is an issue largely dependent on the manufacturers.
"The cooking oils, that was a fairly easy transition," she said. "In terms of manufacturers taking it out of foods, they're going to be faced with replacements and what the replacements should be."
Bratton, however, is confident that finding alternatives for the remaining menu items is achievable.
"It did take a little bit of pursuing our suppliers saying, 'This is what we want' … (but) they were delighted to work with us," he said. "It's only a matter of time before we can hit (other menu options), as well. (The suppliers) listen."
Bratton said he hopes further trans fat free replacements will occur in dining halls in the next couple of weeks.
