Revealing Trans Fats: increased transparency

I love transparency. As many of you know I teach Finance at St. Bonaventure and in class we are always saying that more firms should make their financial statements easier to follow (more transparent) so that all investors know what is going on at the firm. When this happens, you get much more ethical behavior and often a higher stock price (but of course managers can not hide their actions as easily.)

So with that idea of more information being good in mind, let's examine what happened after the Food and Drug Adminstration required new labeling that will soon include a separate listing of trans fat.

(For those of you new to the blog, Trans fat is bad news. It is partially hydrogenated and in my mind the worst kind of fat you can consume. For more on it click here).

From the AP:

"The nation's food companies are stirring up new recipes for everything from Oreos to SpaghettiOs to get rid of trans fat, the artery-clogging ingredient that must be listed on food labels next year."

Moreover, we may soon have a shortening that is without transfat. "The J.M. Smucker Co. introduced a version of Crisco with zero grams trans fat. The new product comes in a green tub — a color consumers equate with being healthy."

The new Crisco is not yet available in our area, but rest assured, as soon as it is, we will have it in our stores.


Moral of the story: transparency is good, transfat is bad. :)