Last July, the Food and Drug Administration transformed the way American food manufacturers do business by requiring them to list the amount of trans fats on the nutritional labels of their products by Jan. 1, 2006.

Trans fats have been a hot topic in scientific circles for a few decades because of concerns about their relationship to coronary heart disease and diabetes. The FDA had been considering its position on these fats (generally described as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils) for the past 10 years. Yet trans fats were little known to the general public. Until recently, people who were eating processed foods -- that's most of us -- were consuming a great deal of trans fats without realizing it.

With the July ruling, the government finally accepted responsibility for alerting American consumers to the dangers of trans fat.

Now it's up to food manufacturers. Those that have depended on these fats in their products are faced with three options: find a way to reduce the amount of trans fat so the number on the nutrition label looks less threatening; come up with recipes that use no trans fats; or simply state the amount of trans fats and see how consumers react.

To say this isn't simple or inexpensive doesn't begin to describe the challenge. Trans fats are in stick margarines, cookies, crackers, commercial breads and pastries, many frozen prepared foods, fried fast foods -- anything with partially hydrogenated oils listed as an ingredient. They enhance taste and texture and ensure a longer shelf life. Not surprisingly, U.S. food manufacturers -- a $500 billion a year business -- fiercely resisted confronting the problem head-on.

Both the Grocery Manufacturers of America (the grocery industry's huge association of food, beverage and consumer product companies) and the National Food Processors Association (the food-processing industry's voice on scientific and public policy issues) reflected that resistance. They now support the FDA rule and encourage their members to do so, but, as recently as October, the NFPA opposed the creation of a nutrition label footnote that would have specifically delineated the amount of trans fat in a product.

Well before the July ruling, by the mid-1990s (when food companies were busy struggling with the health implications of saturated fat), the scientific evidence was strong that trans fats were a serious problem. Although many American food manufacturers realized they'd have to deal with trans fats sooner or later, to a large extent, that meant later.

Influenced by findings that too much saturated fat -- animal fats like butter and beef tallow, coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil -- was unhealthful, some companies turned to partially hydrogenated oils to reduce the amount of saturated fats in their products. Those oils tended to be cheaper too.

In Europe the path was different. As far back as the late 1980s, Unilever, a giant Dutch-based consumer products firm, led the way. The company's premise was that the nutritional makeup of its products should be based on science. "Unilever found that if you make yourself vulnerable by not being able to defend your product, you have big problems," says Ono Korver, who was chief nutrition scientist for the company at that time. "Trans fats nearly developed into a problem -- we realized we had a lot of [them] in the products, and incomplete knowledge."

In the late 1980s, led by Korver's unit in cooperation with R.P. Mensink and M.B. Katan, scientists from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Unilever conducted trials to assess the effects of trans fats on cholesterol and decided that trans fats and saturated fats had a similar harmful impact.

"The logical thing to do was to reduce the total amount of saturated fats and trans fats," says Korver. The task wasn't easy. "You need the hardness of saturated fats or trans fats as a functional property of the product," he says. "The same applies to bakery products, where it's even harder to remove the trans fats and retain the character of the product.

"You need a certain amount, and the trick is to minimize it," he says. "We found a solution that let us make margarine without trans fats, with lower saturated fats and still retain the [product's] properties. We got the best of all worlds."

But the process took several years and involved stormy discussions within the company -- and money. "We won because we have to be in line with scientific development," says Korver. And, he added, "If you have a continuous debate about your product, that's not good for the brand."

Unilever's dominance of the European margarine market at that time prompted other margarine-makers eventually to come out with trans-fat-free margarines.

Why was it possible to respond in a more timely fashion to the developing science on trans fats in Europe than it was in America? "There's a difference in the culture," says Korver. "European companies -- Unilever, Nestle, Danone -- have big research divisions. It helps when you're part of the debate with the business people in the company."

Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition of the Harvard School of Public Health, and a fierce exponent of dangers of partially hydrogenated oils, extends that comparison. "In Europe [food companies] hired chemists and took trans fats out," he says. "In the United States, they hired lawyers and public relations people. No one doubted trans fats have adverse affects on health, and still companies were not taking it out."

Most American companies didn't focus on identifying the trans fats in their product lines until now -- when they have to because of the FDA ruling. That process is taking place at a time of increasing public awareness about the relationship between what we eat and our health. Concerns about obesity are commonplace. Consumers think about food safety, genetically modified foods and fat -- though people are increasingly beginning to understand the difference between good fats and bad fats. So manufacturers have to worry about a lot more than the way their products look and taste.

To help them, many product lines have scientific advisory boards, companies have nutritionists on their boards of directors, and supermarkets give classes in nutrition.

Some companies -- primarily the ones that make or sell "natural" foods -- already had a leg up. The Hain-Celestial Group, which was founded in 1994, never had trans fats in the brands of snack products, cereal bars or cookies it originated. As of last January, WholeFoods Market, the country's largest retailer of organic and natural foods, was able to eliminate all products containing trans fats from its shelves. ("The process took a couple of years. We didn't want to leave our customers with any gaps," says Jody Villecho, the company's nutrition spokeswoman.)

The point, after all, will be not only compliance with the law but sales. And these days customers are more likely to look askance at foods that seem healthful but aren't.

"The food manufacturer is not only selling calories but also health," says Ray Goldberg, the co-founder of the agribusiness program at the Harvard Business School and a specialist on the global food system. "And the retailer is the substitute for the family doctor because people look to retailers for quality control and health control."

Frito-Lay, a division of Pepsico, understood the implications of that attitude early on. Like its parent company, Frito-Lay is sensitive to the consumer's desire for a variety of products, including healthful ones. Home to snack foods like Fritos, Doritos, Cheetos, Cracker Jacks and Sunchips, Frito-Lay made considerable use of trans fats. Then, on May 29, 2002, Pepsico staged a cross-divisional health and wellness summit, featuring health and lifestyle gurus Kenneth Cooper and Dean Ornish, both doctors identified with preventing and even reversing disease through exercise and proper eating.

According to its chairman and CEO, Al Bru, Frito-Lay had already noticed consumer strength in its "better-for-you" portfolio of sensible snacks. And when Cooper and Ornish were asked what else the company could do to appeal to consumers, the message was clear. "The doctors said, 'The single biggest thing you could do is eliminate trans fats,' " says Bru.

On the spot, he decided to removed trans fats from the company's salty snacks (its potato chips, made with corn oil, were already trans-fat-free).

From a business point of view, of course, that decision was time-consuming and expensive. Manufacturing systems had to be converted from old oils to new oils. The employees had to learn new methods of production. Products had to be tested and tasted.

But Bru realized that getting trans fats out of its top products would not only please consumers but also lead the industry.

Now many other companies are coming to terms with trans fats. But eliminating them, or even using smaller amounts, can't be done overnight. Just as Unilever discovered a while ago, and Frito-Lay learned more recently, new technologies and different ingredients are needed.

"We've been working on low-fat and nonfat solutions for over 10 years -- new technologies to make products that have the same physical characteristics of partially hydrogenated oil, but contain no trans fats," says Anthony P. DeLio, vice president of marketing at Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest processors of oilseeds, corn and wheat (the company makes no food products itself, but supplies food manufacturers with ingredients).

New crops may need to be grown too. Much of the partially hydrogenated fat used by the food industry comes from soybeans, so farmers who grow soybeans will have to rethink either what they plant or the amount they plant. "Different oils require different crops, and bringing those crops to maturity takes time. Once you decide you want a new variety or a different product, it takes about five to 10 years," says DeLio.

Alternatively, scientists will have to come up with processes that use those soybeans without turning them into trans fats. (Recently, for example, Monsanto announced its researchers are working on techniques to develop soybeans that will produce oil containing less saturated and trans fats.)

That same taste, same texture goal, but without trans fats, is what most food companies are working on now to comply with the FDA's Jan. 1, 2006 mandated date.

"Everybody is looking at each product to see what the alternative ingredients are and what they can do," says GMA's director of scientific and nutrition policy, Alison Kretser.

"We expect to see many products with redesigned nutrition facts labels come onto the market well before the deadline," says Rhona Applebaum, the NFPA's chief science officer.

Indeed, more trans-fat-free products are already starting to emerge, whether it's cookies, crackers or frozen dinners. Even takeout shops, such as Au Bon Pain, have developed muffins and pastries with zero trans fat. (It's worth pointing out that the designation "zero trans fat" is not precise. The FDA ruling allows food processors the right to claim zero trans fat status if a product contains under 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving.)

"If there is an economic incentive, food companies are capable of doing a lot, getting trans fats out, lowering saturated fats," says Alice Lichtenstein, Tufts School of Medicine professor and nutrition scientist. "I don't view the food industry as leaders as much as supporters. And I think they want their products to sell. If they can make products consistent with current regulations and health messages that sell, then I think they will do it. If there are two choices, and one is healthier than the other, and people buy that one, then you will see more of them."

But what will consumers do if given the choice? How willing are we to take responsibility for our own food choices? That subject will be addressed in the final article in this series next month.

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