A public health battle over what ends up on Ecuador’s food shelves
Originally published on Global Voices
Civil society, academia, and the State met in Quito to discuss progress toward the regulation of trans fatty acids in a country where non-communicable diseases account for more than 76% of deaths. Photo by Salomé Rosales Estrella/Minga por la Pachamama, 2026. Used with permission.
“What are we eating? Foods that regenerate or products that degenerate life?” asked Eliana Estrella on September 7, 2026, in the auditorium of Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador. The popular communicator and member of the Committee of Users of the Food Market (CUUM) was speaking at the Hearts Free of Trans Fats meeting, before social organizations, academia and health agencies.
The event was the first activity in a packed three-day agenda. On September 8, civic organizations and representatives of academia met at FLACSO Ecuador for the workshop “Adding Voices for Health: Ecuador Meeting 2026,” dedicated to identifying priorities, capacities and advocacy strategies regarding noncommunicable diseases, while on September 10, the discussion “Food for Life” examined the responses promoted by civil society, their difficulties and their challenges.
Estrella’s question brought the discussion back to an everyday scene: a person standing in front of a shelf. Products like margarines, cookies, spreads, doughnuts, cakes and some fried foods may contain industrial trans fats, and depend on the oils, fats and processes used to make them — a difference that is not always evident when making a choice.
The World Health Organization (WHO) explains that these fats are produced mainly through partial hydrogenation: hydrogen is added to a liquid oil to make it solid or semi-solid. This creates partially hydrogenated oils, used in certain foods to modify their texture and extend their shelf life — an advantage for manufacturing and preservation, but not for health.
Natural trans fats also exist in the meat and dairy products of ruminants. The WHO considers both to be harmful, but regulatory efforts focus on industrial trans fats because they can be eliminated from the food supply and replaced with healthier fats and oils.
Beatriz Champagne, executive director of Coalición América Saludable (CLAS), a regional collective that brings together more than 200 organizations and individuals, placed the problem beyond individual decisions: “They are not diseases of chance; they are the predictable result of health systems, food systems and regulatory processes that still do not protect the population.”
The WHO estimates that each year, more than 278,000 deaths are attributable to the consumption of industrial trans fats, which is associated with a higher risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and death.
Daniel Antiporta, the Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) representative at the meeting, addressed the regional scope of the problem: more than 150,000 deaths in the Americas, nearly half of them premature. The impact, he warned, is not limited to years of productivity lost; it also compromises well-being and human development.
Estrella, meanwhile, focused on the conditions surrounding each purchase. Describing these products as “accessible,” “cheap,” and promoted through major marketing investments, she argued that they displace fresh foods and local agriculture, because consumers’ money stops reaching the people who produce them.
Malek Batal, a professor at the University of Montreal’s Department of Nutrition, linked those decisions to the available supply: “We can only buy what exists and what exists at an affordable price.” Focusing recommendations exclusively on individuals, he added, can increase frustration and the feeling of being unable to care for one’s own health.
In subsequent interviews for this article, Champagne and Estrella explained how the problem cuts across everyday life. Champagne noted that while hydrogenation made it possible to produce solid fats and extend the shelf life of some products, what facilitates preservation can leave consequences that last much longer. A heart attack, for example, may require emergency care, medication and surgery; a stroke can affect speech or movement, and make permanent care necessary.
Illness also affects income, time management and the organization of a household. “No one is an island,” Champagne stressed. In cases where hiring a nurse is not possible, the responsibility of caregiving often falls on a partner or another family member.
At the same time, the ability to reduce risk often depends on education, income and where people live, prompting Champagne to stress the need for a collective response: “The main thing would be to have a policy, because then the entire population of Ecuador would reduce its risk; everyone would be protected.”
Estrella came to her advocacy work through personal experience. About 15 years ago, her mother’s death from cancer awakened in her a fear of becoming ill and led her to seek out healthy foods. At the time, she did not establish a connection between that disease and trans fats, but her journey brought her closer to agro-ecological products, and the people who grow them and care for the soil. Changing one’s diet, she acknowledged, requires time, motivation and access to alternatives.
Ecuador already has legislation in this regard: Ministerial Agreement 4439 set a maximum of two grams of trans fats per 100 grams of fat. The limit covers oils, fats and margarines sold directly, as well as the ingredients used by food industries, bakeries, restaurants and food services. Natural trans fats from the meat and dairy products of ruminants were exempted.
In numerical terms, Ecuador adopted the limit recommended by the WHO, through the coverage differs slightly. The WHO proposes applying it to all foods, while the Ministerial Agreement does not expressly mention every final processed product, nor does it prohibit the production and use of partially hydrogenated oils, another measure that the WHO supports.
Implementation is another issue. Agreement 4439 assigns enforcement to Ecuador’s health authority without detailing the frequency of inspections, laboratory protocols or publication of results. The organizations promoting the campaign have turned these gaps into a concrete agenda: extending the regulation to all processed products, banning partially hydrogenated oils, and establishing effective monitoring. In addition, they continue to produce informational materials, build networks with agro-ecological markets, and facilitate spaces for discussion between civic organizations and academia.
Describing the 2013 regulation as Ecuador’s first step toward international standards, Antiporta noted that in the Americas, around 828 million people are covered by best-practice policies. Among the countries that have advanced, he mentioned Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru and Brazil.
The next step, therefore, combines regulation with the capacity to enforce it. Champagne spoke of approving legislation, developing rules for implementation, and carrying out periodic inspections. Antiporta added two conditions: laboratories and protocols capable of determining what fats a food contains — controls that would make it possible to verify whether products comply with the limit, and whether partially hydrogenated oils have been removed from the food chain.
Estrella condensed that technical chain into an everyday aspiration: “to look at a shelf without looking at the labels,” with the assurance that those fats will not be there. The question is no longer only what each person decides to eat, but what protection they find when making a choice.