On 3/11/2004 2:55 PM, Peggy Sullivan wrote:
> jmk wrote:
>
>> On 3/3/2004 12:09 PM, Peggy Sullivan wrote:
>>
>>> jmk wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 3/3/2004 11:09 AM, Peggy Sullivan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> jmk wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 3/3/2004 10:47 AM, Peggy Sullivan wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> jmk wrote [about the amount of transfats in one serving of Skippy]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> About one gram per serving (I aske them and I think it as .8 or
>>>>>> something) is not zero, it's still a gram more than is necessary.
>>>>>> It's not as if natural peanut butter is difficult to come by.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Who did you ask?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The folks at Skippy. I e-mailed them and they left me a phone
>>>> message that same day.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'm confused then. I have emailed them myself to see what they have to
>>> say.
>>>
>>> If what you say is true then the statement on their web site about
>>> Skippy being a trans fat free food is false and the scientists at the
>>> USDA that did the study described at:
>>>
>>> http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2001/010612.htm
>>>
>>> are badly wrong, as are all the other websites I found that also
>>> refer to the same results.
>>>
>>> Perhaps however, the 0.8 grams (or something) is the quantity of
>>> hydrogenated oils added -- almost all of which are not trans fats
>>> according to the USDA study.
>>>
>>> Peggy
>>
>>
>>
>> Right. That's why I e-mailed them. It says 0 but I think that it
>> means "less than 1." I wanted to confirm that. Anyway, I like
>> natural peanut butter and it is readily available so that is what I
>> get. It was more a curiosity thing that anything.
>>
>
> As I said above, I emailed them also, and finally got a reply, copied
> below, that does not support your .8 g figure, but instead refers
> to the work described at the USDA site mentioned above. The numbers
> in that work imply that you would need to consume 20 or more 18 oz
> jars of Skippy to ingest one gram of trans fats. So as I said earlier,
> trans fats are not the reason to avoid Skippy, although taste preferences
> or the sugar content may be.
>
> Here is the email I got from Skippy:
>
>> Hi Peggy,
>>
>> Thanks so much for writing!
>>
>> A recent evaluation of commercial peanut butter, including Skippy,
>> conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture confirms that
>> only trace amounts of "trans fats" were found, significantly below the
>> minimum level proposed for labeling. By FDA definition, Skippy peanut
>> butter is a trans-fat free food.
>>
>> Here are some additional facts:
>>
>> -The fat must be labeled "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" per FDA
>> regulations. It does not have the same structure as most partially
>> hydrogenated fats that do contribute "trans fats"
>> -Only a small amount of stabilizer is used to prevent oil separation on a
>> serving size basis.
>> -The same level of "trans fats" was found in peanut butter that does not
>> contain stabilizers (natural) and traditional peanut butter.
>> -Trans Fatty Acids occur naturally in meat and dairy products. TFA's are
>> produced during the hydrogenations of vegetable oil, a process that adds
>> hydrogen to unsaturated fatty acids in vegetable oil in order to change
>> the fat from a liquid to a solid state.
>>
>> How can peanut butter be categorized as having no trans fat if it
>> contains
>> partially hydrogenated vegetable oil?
>>
>> -A study by Dr. Tim Sanders of USDA/ARS revealed that the level of trans
>> fat in 6 samples of regular peanut butter (less than 0.001 g trans fat
>> per
>> 1 oz. serving) is well below the proposed FDA cut off of less than 0.5
>> grams for labeling a product as "zero grams trans fat."
>>
>> Thanks for your interest!
>> Your friends at Skippy

Thanks for sharing. I find it to be very interesting that they changed
their PR on transfats after this study was published.

--
jmk in NC