Staff Reporter: Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) has been working for over a year to regulate a fatally toxic food element trans fatty acids (TFA) or trans fat. After great coordinated efforts, the authority has finalized the “Limiting Trans Fatty Acids in Foodstuffs Regulations, 2021”which is now on its way to be officially notified through government gazette notification. Relevant sources have informed that the regulation has already been put at the BG Press, the government authority for gazette publications. Commenting about the publication of the regulation, the BFSA Chairman Md. Abdul Kayowm Sarker told The New Nation recently that, all steps have been taken on this regard and the process is going well.
In order to reduce the global prevalence of cardiovascular diseases from a preventable cause, the World Health Organization (WHO) has set the target to eliminate industrially produced trans-fat from the global food supply chain by 2023. WHO estimates that around 500,000 people die of heart diseases globally each year due to consumption of excessive TFA with food. In the ‘WHO report on global trans-fat elimination 2020’, it has been said that Bangladesh ranks among 15 countries with the highest burden of deaths from coronary heart diseases due to trans-fat intake with 4.41% of the total deaths from cardiovascular diseases being attributed to TFA intake. Following WHO recommendation of limiting the maximum level of trans fat in all food products to 2% of its total fat contents, the BFSA has prepared the new regulation for limiting TFA. Industrially produced trans-fat is a toxic food element responsible for increased risks of premature death from heart diseases, the prime source of which is dalda or bonospoti-ghee. In general, TFA is found in fast food and bakery products as well as various foods of hotels and restaurants that are made using dalda. Dalda is used by processed food manufacturers in an unregulated manner. Alarmingly, researchers have found 92 per cent of sampled dalda from Dhaka to contain more than 2 per cent trans- fat (trans fatty acid) which exceeds recommendations by the WHO. Number of public health experts has urged the government to finalize and immediately implement the TFA regulation in order to save the people of the country from a preventable cause of cardiovascular diseases. Eyeing on the safety of public health, research and advocacy organization PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress) has acclaimed the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority and all relevant stakeholders for finalizing the trans fat regulation and urged everyone from all sectors of the country to take part in ensuring effective and speedy implementation of the regulation.
