Contribution of trans‐Fatty Acids from Vegetable Oils and Margarines to the Belgian Diet

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Abstract
Nineteen commercial samples of vegetable oils and margarines marketed in Belgium (nine margarines, nineteen vegetable oils), Hungary (seven margarines) and Great‐Britain (three margarines) were analyzed by gas‐liquid chromatography for their trans‐fatty acid (TFA) content. For the vegetable oil samples under study, the TFA content ranged from 0.0–4.6% (mean: 1.1%, S.D.: 1.1%). Trans‐isomers in these samples were almost exclusively C 18:2 and C 18:3 isomers formed during high temperature refining. Trans‐isomers of the margarines were mainly C 18:1 isomers formed during hydrogenation. For the Belgian resp. Hungarian samples mean trans‐values of 6.36% (S.D. = 6.20%) resp. 14.06% (S.D. = 7.59%) expressed on fat basis were established. From these figures the average daily intake of TFA from margarines resp. vegetable oils by the Belgian population was calculated at 1.1 resp. 0.1g/person/day. When so‐called zero‐trans margarines (±0.5% TFA) are consumed, the trans‐intake can be reduced to about 0.1g/person/day.