Its Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed a bill last Friday to phase out trans fats in restaurant products and retail baked goods within the next three years. Some US cities, including New York and Philadelphia, have already instituted bans, as has Denmark. Canada and the European Union are also working towards bans.

Yet in Australia, manufacturers are not even compelled to list trans fatty acids as an ingredient in processed foods.

The California decision has prompted the NSW Greens to introduce a bill to make the NSW representatives on the Ministerial Food Council call for mandated labelling of all packaged foods containing trans fats, ultimately leading to a state ban followed by a national moratorium.

John Kaye, a Greens MP in the upper house, said an estimated 2000 Australians die each year because of trans fats. "Australian consumers are being left to the mercy of the food corporations," he said. "Community health is being sacrificed to prop up the dogma of self-regulation, while heart disease claims thousands of unsuspecting victims each year."

Although the individual councils of Kogarah and Gosford recently banned the use of the synthetic ingredient in all new food outlets, the national food authority insists such action is unnecessary because Australians' consumption of trans fats - commonly found in fast food, supermarket-baked goods and confectionery - is much lower than in the US.

The World Health Organisation recommends a daily limit of 1 per cent of total kilojoules consumed. But the average Australian consumes just 0.6 per cent of trans fats, according to Food Standards Australia New Zealand, and half of that is naturally occurring, from olive oil, canned fish, meat and dairy.

However, a growing number of international health experts, including Professor Garry Jennings, the director of Melbourne's Baker Heart Research Institute, say there is no such thing as a safe level of consumption. A recent Oxford University study found that just a 2 per cent increase in energy intake from trans fatty acids can lead to a 23 per cent increase in coronary heart disease.

A spokeswoman from FSANZ said the consumption of saturated fats was of far greater concern to health authorities. However, the authority was planning to conduct a national survey early next year that would examine, among other issues, whether the consumption of trans fatty acids was on the increase as a result of the campaign against saturated fats.