Trans fatty acids in two classes of reformulated “zero trans” Spanish margarines by use of second derivative ATR-FTIR spectroscopy

Abstract

This work arouses a criticism about if “no trans fat” really means no trans fat. This issue seems to be interesting because of the direct relationship between trans-fat intake and a pronounced risk of coronary heart disease. Very low amounts of trans-fat (less than 0.5 per cent, as percentage of total fat) have been found in commercial soft and hard reformulated margarine labelled as “zero trans”, by the use of the innovative recently validated second derivative procedure of attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. In this way the possibility to inform consumers on trans-fat content in 0.1%-trans-fat increments, from 0% to 2%, as percentage of total fat, in the Nutrition Fact label could be feasible.