Cookies. Pizza. Cake. All are delicious – but potentially deadly. In addition to their often-high sugar, salt or fat content, these foods can also contain a toxic ingredient that kills almost 300,000 people from coronary heart disease each year: industrially produced trans fat.

Invented in the early 20th century as a substitute for butter and later used to increase the shelf life of food products, industrially produced trans fat is highly hazardous to human health. There is no safe level of consumption. Fortunately, this toxic food additive can be replaced easily with healthier alternatives – there is no difference to taste or manufacturing costs, and hundreds of thousands of lives a year can be saved.

Six years ago, WHO called on countries and the food sector to eliminate industrially produced trans fat from the global food supply. At that time, only a small proportion of the world’s population – less than one in 10 people – were protected from this toxic chemical.

A new WHO report on the state of global trans fat elimination details the tremendous progress we’ve made in just the past few years. Today, 53 countries with nearly four billion people are implementing WHO-recommended best practice policies that include bans or limits on trans fat, removing this major health risk for........

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