In a unanimous vote Tuesday, the New York City Board of Health reached a decision to move forward with plans to strictly limit the amount of trans fat in the food served by the city’s restaurants.

The final vote on the proposal is scheduled to take place in December 2007, following a public hearing on Oct. 30.

The approval of this measure would make New York the first major city in the United States to regulate trans fat.

The limitations would affect all of the city’s 20,000 restaurants – from fast food and street vendors to five-star establishments.

Although it is a step in the right direction, enforcing this measure would be easier said than done, said Lynn Brann, assistant professor in the department of nutrition and hospitality management at Syracuse University.

‘Limiting trans fat would require replacing it with another fat,’ she said. ‘The hardest part is finding another substitute. Hopefully they will choose something healthy.’

Many studies have been done showing that trans fat can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, Brann said.

This needs to be done, but the initiative will have to give the restaurants a realistic amount of time to comply, said Ruth Sullivan, a registered dietitian and nutrition educator for SU Food Services.

‘I don’t think it’s unrealistic, as long as restaurants are given enough time to work on developing a replacement fat,’ she said.

The measure would give restaurants until July 2008 to replace any oils, margarines or spreads containing more than half a gram of trans fat per serving from their recipes.

It can be done, Sullivan said.

KFC and Taco Bell plan to have trans fat free menus by April 2007 – an initiative that took them two years to complete, Sullivan said. SU dining halls have been trans fat free since April 2006.

Paula Kinev, a sophomore music performance major from Manhattan, said she couldn’t imagine the proposal being fully enforced.

‘I’m sure it’s possible to force all the major establishments to comply, but there are so many independent hole-in-the-wall neighborhood restaurants and street vendors that I can’t picture it working,’ she said. ‘Many don’t even follow health codes.’

Brann and Sullivan both agree that the most important step that needs to be taken is to educate the public about fat.

‘People need to limit their fat intake all around,’ Sullivan said.

It is important to understand that this is just a small step in the big picture of health maintenance, Brann said.

‘Just because they’re replacing trans fat doesn’t mean that you can eat as much as you want,’ Brann said. ‘This won’t necessarily immediately improve people’s health. There is a lot more that needs to be done, like encouraging a healthy lifestyle.’

Published on December 21, 2006 at 12:00 pm