DEADLY artificial fats found in hundreds of foods are set to be made illegal under a government plan aimed at saving thousands of lives each year in the UK.

Man-made "trans fats" found in many products, including cakes, biscuits and pizzas, will have to be removed by food manufacturers if the legal ban under consideration goes ahead.

Scotland on Sunday can reveal that ministers have finally lost patience with the food industry's continuing failure to remove trans fats voluntarily. Talks are under way between the Food Standards Agency and Department of Health on measures leading up to a ban.

The move would bring the UK into line with Denmark and New York where trans fats have already been outlawed.

British food firms are only likely to avoid a legal ban if they make a rapid and concerted attempt to drastically reduce trans fat levels or remove them altogether.

Campaigners claim trans fats cause 10,000 premature deaths from heart attacks annually in Britain, three times the number killed on roads. Trans fats are potentially deadly because the body cannot break them down in the same way it deals with natural fat.

The move toward legal regulation of the substances is a significant development, as the government has previously allowed the food industry to regulate itself. A number of firms have reduced the amount of trans fats in their products, but some of the most popular products on supermarket shelves still contain significant quantities of the "silent killer".

A senior Department of Health source said the issue had not been given priority in the past but it was now determined to tackle the problem. He said: "We are already at the forefront of moves to get better labelling of trans fats in the EU, but you can expect more action from us in future months at home.

"Labelling is a start, but the government is prepared to look at all proactive options leading up to a total ban."

The source said action would be taken by the Westminster and Scottish parliaments following consultation on both sides of the Border which is due to start this year.

Pressure groups welcomed the suggestion that the latest health "bogeyman" could be eradicated from the nation's diet. Oliver Tickell, the driving force behind the tfx campaign, aimed at abolishing trans fats in food altogether, said there was "overwhelming" evidence that the substances were damaging the nation's health.

"The government's stance so far has been quite extraordinarily hopeless," he told Scotland on Sunday. "Ministers have admitted that there are health risks associated with these products, but they have claimed that they want to focus on the dangers posed by saturated fats instead.

"I agree that saturated fats are dangerous, but a government should be able to tackle more than one threat at a time. If they are going to act, any movement would be welcome."

Trans fats are created as a result of treating vegetable oil to make it last longer. The natural oil is heated and then hydrogen gas bubbled in, creating a solid. The resulting hydrogenated fat is a cheap and convenient ingredient in many foods.

But trans fats raise cholesterol levels and increase the risk of heart disease. They have also been linked with critical health complaints including obesity, cancers, diabetes and allergies.

But despite the mounting concern, manufacturers in the UK are not obliged to disclose on ingredients labels that their products contain trans fats.

The US Food and Drug Administration decided last year that trans fats must be listed on all packaged foods. The growing campaign against their risks gathered pace last autumn, when New York announced that it would ban trans fats from the city's restaurants from July this year. Canada and Chicago are considering similar bans.

The crackdown has had a dramatic knock-on impact on the nation's biggest food companies. Fast-food chains such as Wendy's, KFC and Red Lobster have pledged to eliminate trans fats nationwide, while McDonald's is ploughing millions of dollars into finding an acceptable alternative. Starbucks is to ban trans fats at its coffee-houses in 10 cities - including Chicago and New York.

The most dramatic impact has been seen in Denmark, which became the first country to effectively ban trans fats in restaurants and packaged foods, by stipulating that oils could contain no more than 2% of them.

Steen Stender, a cardiologist at Gentofte University Hospital in Copenhagen, said the country has seen a 20% fall in deaths from heart disease since the ban. "In Denmark nobody can tell a difference in taste, even with what you call the Danish pastry," he said. "We have managed to do it without resorting back to saturated fats."

Britain's obesity strategy has previously targeted work at reducing the average intake of saturated fat from the current level of 13.4% to below 11% of food energy by 2010.

But public health minister Caroline Flint said her department has held discussions with the FSA "in relation to the existing assessment of the health effects of hydrogenated oils and fats in food products".

A series of UK food companies last night said they were already taking action to improve their records on trans fats.

A spokesman for Unilever said the company had developed new technologies to limit the amount of saturated and trans fatty acids in its products, which include Flora.

He added: "For many years now we have kept the level of trans and saturated fatty acids as low as possible in our products."

Northern Foods has removed hydrogenated vegetable oils from Fox's Biscuits and Holland's Pie brands, and is trialling the removal of hydrogenated vegetable oils (HVO) from products under the Goodfella's pizza brand.

A spokeswoman said: "Northern Foods has been working over recent years to use 'healthier' fats as an ingredient in its products.

"Accordingly, we have already achieved the planned removal of HVO as an ingredient from all own label biscuits and ready meals produced by the company. Northern Foods is also making good progress towards the removal of hydrogenated vegetable oils from its key branded products."

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