The Bangladesh Food Safety Authority has finalised the "Limiting Trans Fatty Acids in Foodstuffs Regulations 2021" and it awaits gazette notification by the law ministry.
Manzur Morshed Ahmed, a member of BFSA and the head of its technical committee on trans-fat, told The Business Post that they have already sent the regulations to the ministry and expect that it would publish a gazette notification within five to seven days.
The World Health Organization has set the target to eliminate industrially-produced trans-fat from the global food supply chain by 2023 and with that target in mind, BFSA started works on setting a limit for Trans-fat in processed food.
Bangladesh ranks top among 15 countries with the burden of deaths from coronary diseases due to trans-fat intake, said a WHO report.
Industrially produced trans-fat is a toxic food element that causes increased risks of premature death from heart diseases, dalda or banaspati ghee is its prime source.
Fast food and bakery products as well as various foods made with banaspati ghee contain trans-fat. Researchers have found 92 per cent of sampled dalda from Dhaka contains more than 2 per cent trans- fat (trans fatty acid) which exceeds recommendations by the WHO.
Public health experts remained vocal for formulating the regulations on limiting the use of trans-fat to two per cent to protect people from severe health risks.
Eyeing on the safety of public health, research and advocacy organisation PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress) called for the immediate publication of the gazette notification on the trans-fat regulations as well as its implementation.
The longer it takes to eliminate trans-fat, the number of unintended preventable deaths go higher, the organisation said.
