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. 2017 Jun 28;9(7):662.
doi: 10.3390/nu9070662.

Margarines and Fast-Food French Fries: Low Content of trans Fatty Acids

Iciar Astiasarán  1 , Elena Abella  2 , Giulia Gatta  3 , Diana Ansorena  4
Affiliations

Margarines and Fast-Food French Fries: Low Content of trans Fatty Acids

Iciar Astiasarán et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

The lipid fraction of margarines and fast food French fries, two types of foods traditionally high in trans fatty acids (TFA), is assessed. TFA data reported worldwide during the last 20 years have been gathered and show that some countries still report high TFA amounts in these products. The content of TFA was analysed in margarines (two store and four premium brands) and French-fries from fast-food restaurants (five chains). All samples were collected in Pamplona (Navarra, Spain). The margarines showed mean values of 0.68% and 0.43% (g TFA/100 g fat) for the store and premium brands, respectively. The French fries' values ranged from 0.49% to 0.89%. All samples were lower than the 2% set by some European countries as the maximum legal content of TFA in fats, and contained less than 0.5 g/serving, so they could also be considered "trans free products". This work confirmed that the presence of TFA is not significant in the two analysed products and contributes updated food composition tables, key tools for epidemiological and nutrition studies.

Keywords: fast food; food composition tables; lipid profile; spreads; trans fat.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Evolution of the TFA content (g/100 g fat) in (a) margarines and (b) French fries in Spain. Between brackets, the reference of the paper is indicated.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Boxplot for the sum of SFA plus trans fat (g/100 g product) for all samples analyzed. The median, 25th, and 75th quartiles and the maximum and minimum values are represented. SFA: sum of saturated fatty acids. (A) Margarines and (B) French fries.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Boxplot for the sum of SFA plus trans fat (g/100 g product) for all samples analyzed. The median, 25th, and 75th quartiles and the maximum and minimum values are represented. SFA: sum of saturated fatty acids. (A) Margarines and (B) French fries.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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