The food industry faces a government inquiry into its role in Britain’s surging obesity and heart disease rates with ministers considering a ban on trans fats as the first decisive step.
The inquiry, ordered by Alan Johnson, the health secretary, follows a series of warnings from successive health ministers that the food industry needed to improve the healthiness of its products - most of which have been ignored.
Johnson said: “We know we must act. We cannot afford not to act. For the first time we are clear about the magnitude of the problem: we are facing a potential crisis on the scale of climate change and it is in everybody’s interest to turn things around.”
The proposed ban on trans fats is being seen as a warning shot to the food industry as well as an important measure in its own right.
