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According to their website, Skippy brand peanut butter does not contain trans fat.

However, the current label for their chunky peanut butter contains the following ingredient in the listing: Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Cottonseed, Soybean and Rapeseed Oil) To Prevent Separation.

Soybean oil is a known source of trans fat, which can be a source of atherosclerosis – the clogging of arteries with plaque – which can be a cause of heart attacks.

Is their website just blatantly lying about the lack of trans fat?

George Grainger
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Chris Redford
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    Could it be that local law allows "...has zero grams per serving." meaning "...has less than one gram per serving."? – npst Feb 25 '19 at 14:58
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    I thought hydrogenated oils was trans-fat, not just soybean oil. So hydrogenated canola (rapeseed) oil would also be trans-fat, right? – Chloe Feb 26 '19 at 16:03
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    @Chloe Only partially hydrogenated oil contains trans fat and the only partially hydrogenated oil is the soy bean oil. The other oils are fully hydrogenated, so they do not contain trans fat. – Chris Redford Feb 26 '19 at 16:42
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    Are you sure the soybean oil is partially hydrogenated? Where does it say that? – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Feb 27 '19 at 04:44
  • @iamnotmaynard In the link I cited it says "much of the soybean oil consumed in many parts of the world has been partially hydrogenated". The fact that Skippy chose to list the ingredient ambiguously as "hydrogenated oil" instead of explicitly as "fully hydrogenated oil" is also a known strategy companies use to avoid disclosing that they are utilizing partially hydrogenated oil. – Chris Redford Feb 27 '19 at 05:25
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    Trans fats are not entirely unnatural. They can develop at low levels during mechanical processing and product storage from the original form. So without legal permission to use 0 to represent "negligible" or "trace", it can't ever be strictly true. Such levels are not a health hazard -- "The poison is in the dose". Of course, the levels in chemically partially hydrogenated fats are completely off the scale of natural occurrence, and do represent a health hazard. – nigel222 Feb 27 '19 at 10:58
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    It's worth noting that the FDA has determined that Partially Hydrogenated Oils are not Generally Recognized as Safe (or GRAS) and has established rules for their elimination from the US food supply: https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/foodadditivesingredients/ucm449162.htm If any foods still have trans-fat being added to them, they won't for long; they are being removed from all foods – Flydog57 Feb 27 '19 at 23:38
  • I haven't seen transfat on a label in 10 years. They don't use it anymore. –  Jan 07 '23 at 05:52

3 Answers3

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According to their website, Skippy brand peanut butter does not contain trans fat.

Strictly speaking, according to their website, Skippy brand peanut butter contains a negligible amount of trans fat. Per the US FDA,

The Nutrition Facts Label can state 0 g of trans fat if the food product contains less than 0.5 g of trans fat per serving. Thus, if a product contains partially hydrogenated oils, then it might contain small amounts of trans fat even if the label says 0 g of trans fat.

So they're being sneaky, right? Not really. The amount of trans fat in a serving of peanut butter is far less than the limit of 0.5 grams that needs to be reported as above zero. Only a tiny amount of hydrogenated vegetable oil is added to peanut butter to make it smooth, prevent separation, and drastically increase shelf life, and only a small amount of that small amount is in the form of trans fat. While non-zero, the amount is essentially undetectable. From Sanders, T.H., 2001. Non-detectable levels of trans-fatty acids in peanut butter. Journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 49(5), pp.2349-2351,

The fatty acid composition of 11 brands of peanut butter and paste freshly prepared from roasted peanuts was analyzed with emphasis on isomeric trans-fatty acids. No trans-fatty acids were detected in any of the samples in an analytical system with a detection threshold of 0.01% of the sample weight. Hydrogenated vegetable oils are added to peanut butters at levels of 1--2% to prevent oil separation. Some hydrogenated vegetable oils are known to be sources of trans-fatty acids in the human diet. The addition of these products was not found to result in measurable amounts of trans-fatty acids in the peanut butters analyzed.

David Hammen
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    This is similar to the reason why [Tic Tacs are labelled as sugar-free](https://www.tictacusa.com/en/faq), despite consisting of almost nothing _but_ sugar. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 25 '19 at 18:41
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    @JanusBahsJacquet I don't think it's remotely similar. The serving size for Tic Tacs is 0.49 g (1 mint) so it couldn't possibly be above 0.5 g sugar per serving, and it is in fact mostly sugar. That is an extreme example highlighting the problem with setting these limits relative to serving size, which is a somewhat arbitrary concept (who eats just one Tic Tac?) . For Skippy peanut butter on the other hand, the serving size is 32 g, so less than 0.5 g trans fat means less than ~1.5%, and the study linked to in this answer shows that actual levels are less than 0.01%. – jkej Feb 25 '19 at 19:35
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    @JanusBahsJacquet, No, it's very different. Tic Tacs are 91% sugar by weight, but since a Tic Tac "serving" is less than 1/2 gram, Tic Tacs have less than the reportable amount of *anything*. Peanut butter on the other hand contains less than 0.01% *trans* fat by weight. You'd have to eat an institutional-sized jar of peanut butter as one serving in order to consume 0.5 grams of *trans* fat. – David Hammen Feb 25 '19 at 19:35
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    @jkej Actually, it’s not only similar, but identical: the reason in both cases is that the limit is ‘hard-coded’ at 0.5g regardless of percentual content. In both cases it leads to misleading labelling, it’s just much _more_ misleading. Naturally, the _situations_ are very different between the two, but the underlying reason is the same. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 25 '19 at 19:42
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    You should address: Fully or partially hydrogenated oils. "Fully" are just saturated fatty acids (plus tiny impurities), made artificially. (Perhaps even mainly ruminant-made trans-fatty-acids, CLA etc?) – LangLаngС Feb 25 '19 at 19:42
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    @JanusBahsJacquet Fair enough. I think we agree on that. But your original comment could easily be read differently. – jkej Feb 25 '19 at 19:56
  • @jkej Yes, I could have phrased it more precisely, that’s true. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 25 '19 at 21:58
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    And if anyone is curious about the italicization: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/170273/trans-fat-is-italicized – Acccumulation Feb 25 '19 at 23:37
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Your comment made perfect sense to me. Difference in quantity rather than quality, and all that. Not sure why others have been unable to get your point. – Nacht Feb 25 '19 at 23:40
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    @Nacht - JanusBahsJacquet's comment is rather misleading. Tic Tacs is being sneaky, very sneaky, with their labeling. Skippy, along with all other peanut brands that don't have a layer of separated oil at the top of the jar, are not being sneaky. If anything, they're hamstrung by the regulations rather than taking advantage of them. If a product can contain a non-zero amount of *trans* fatty acids that must be reported, on the nutrition label, and if the amount is less than half of a gram per serving, the nutrition label must say 0 grams. – David Hammen Feb 26 '19 at 13:47
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    I too was confused by @JanusBahsJacquet's comment. The difference between the two cases is that if you multiply the serving size by 100, in one case the result is the same, in the other case, it's dramatically different. It's a matter of significant figures vs absolute numbers. – barbecue Feb 26 '19 at 14:54
  • @Acccumulation Thank to that link I finally understood why LGBT people use the term *cis* gendered... it never occurred to me that it might have been a chemical reference and the last time I had to study biology/chemistry was like 10 years ago. However now I feel uneasy at all the times the words *trans* gender and *cis* gender aren't written properly italicized... – Bakuriu Feb 26 '19 at 20:05
  • @DavidHammen you're still missing his point. Obviously he's not saying Tic Tacs arent being sneaky, as he himself brought up the fact that they contain almost nothing but sugar. He's also not saying Skippy are being misleading. The only point was that the source of the confusion was the same - being below the threshold. The Tic Tac example serves to make what's going on all the more obvious. – Nacht Feb 26 '19 at 22:02
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    @JanusBahsJacuet with that same logic then you should start labeling ALL bananas as hazardous radioactive, seawater as being made of gold and homeopathy as medicine. – Aron Feb 27 '19 at 05:39
  • I find the acs.org link a questionable source. I find [this](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921725/) far more credible. Quoting from NIH: “Therefore, there is no such thing as a safe level of dietary trans fat.” – VGR Feb 27 '19 at 17:11
  • @VGR - The American Chemical Society is not a reliable source? **Are you serious?** – David Hammen Feb 28 '19 at 02:41
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    @VGR The ACS abstract (can't view full text) says it's *undetectable* at least down to 0.01%. It never makes any claims about a "safe" level. Meanwhile, you've taken your own quote out of context. It follows "Trans fats provide no benefits to human health and are not essential." (so, avoid as much as possible) and the rest of your article speaks in terms of keeping it below 1% of total caloric intake, keeping it below 2% of total fat content, etc.. Undetectable at 0.01% is *at least* two orders of magnitude below those levels that were highlighted as concerning. – Bob Feb 28 '19 at 06:55
  • @VGR Side note re: credibility, your link is as much "from" NIH as [this one](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11368602) is. Yours actually came from "Paediatrics and Child Health" by the Canadian Paediatric Society while the OP's one is published in the "Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry" by the ACS. – Bob Feb 28 '19 at 07:03
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I note that the label says "Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil" not "Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil". If the oil has been fully hydrogenated it no longer contains trans fats, by definition.

Unfortunately you can't know whether an oil has been fully or partially hydrogenated when the label omits those qualifiers. It seems highly likely to me that the manufacturer did this intentionally to avoid the negative stigma associated with partial hydrogenation. It would be wise to assume partial hydrogenation when "Fully" is absent.

A fully hydrogenated oil by itself will be solid at room temperature but I cannot say what would happen to an fully hydrogenated oil suspended in a matrix of peanut bits.

http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-eating/food/article/hydrogenated-oils for more information on hydrogenation and health.

https://www.nationalpeanutboard.org/wellness/why-you-shouldnt-be-scared-oil-in-your-peanut-butter.htm for a highly biased take on the oils used in peanut butter across the industry.

Tim Sparkles
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    "It seems highly likely to me that the manufacturer did this intentionally to avoid the negative stigma associated with partial hydrogenation." But partially hydrogenated oil typically consists of 30-40% trans fat and according to the study cited in David Hammen's answer, peanut butter typically contains 1-2% hydrogenated vegetable oil. That would give 0.3-0.8% trans fat in the peanut butter, but the study couldn't detect any trans fat (with a detection limit of 0.01%). So either it's fully hydrogenated, or they have some way of doing partial hydrogenation without producing trans fat. – jkej Feb 25 '19 at 20:16
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    So perhaps the marketing directive behind omitting the partial/full qualifier is "keep the ingredient list as short as possible". – Tim Sparkles Feb 25 '19 at 20:23
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    Interesting. JIF's labeling makes a point of stating that theirs is fully hydrogenated. Perhaps Skippy's is a blend of fully and partially. – PoloHoleSet Feb 25 '19 at 23:34
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Under US law, if a food label says "hydrogenated oil" instead of "partially hydrogenated oil", that must refer to fully hydrogenated oil. By definition, fully hydrogenated oil contains no trans fats. Trans fats are defined by the locations where hydrogen atoms do or don't bond with carbon atoms; once the oil is fully hydrogenated it becomes a saturated fat instead.

Assuming that the ingredient list is complete and accurate, and the oil has been processed as intended, the product in question should contain zero trans fat.

octern
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