Health experts have criticised Australia's decision not to label food products containing trans fats, after health ministers recently accepted the recommendation by Australia's food safety regulator to reject compulsory labelling.

Trans fats are linked to heart disease and cancer and have been all but banned in a number of European countries.

The recommendation said the amount of trans fats on average in Australian food was so low it did not pose a significant health risk, though there were concerns many Australians were still consuming dangerously high levels of trans fats.

Jane Martin from the Obesity Policy Coalition said people deserved to know.

"Trans fats should be labelled on the nutrition information panel if they're above a certain level," she said.

"They're very dangerous to people's health and we need to empower people to make healthier choices and if they don't have the information they can't do that."

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A ministerial panel report which recommended labelling on nutritional information panels was recently rejected by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).

FSANZ chief executive Steve McCutcheon said on average Australians were consuming much lower amounts of trans fats than the acceptable levels set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"As a result of our most recent review of trans fatty acids in the food supply chain, we presented a report to ministers," he said.

"Basically they concluded on the basis of our report that there wasn't a need for mandatory labelling of trans fatty acids on foods sold in Australia and New Zealand.

"And that's what I would consider to be a proportionate response to the particular health risk that we're seeking to address."

However, Queensland University of Technology public health expert Professor Amanda Lee said some foods still had high levels of trans fats, and those foods were commonly cheaper.

"Often it is the lower socio economic groups or the most vulnerable groups in our community that run the risk of being exposed to intakes of trans fats that are not consistent with positive health outcomes," she said.

"Now these groups are the ones that are most at risk of poor health outcomes already, particularly cardiovascular disease in Aboriginal communities.

"So while it might be on average okay for Australia we have strong equity issues here."

Trans fats labelling 'essential', WHO expert says

In Europe a number of countries including Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Austria have strict limits on trans fats.

Head of the nutrition and obesity program at the WHO in Europe, Joao Breda, said countries who banned trans fats had positive health impacts.

"Countries like Denmark, where we have a ban since 2005 which has been very effective, data shows that probably lives and cardiovascular events have been saved since then," he said.

"Labelling is essential, labelling is very important," he said.

"It's part of providing and making absolutely important information available to consumers."

However, Lisa Renn from the Dietician's Association of Australia said labelling was not always the answer and health education was a better option.

"I really do think that the problem is more about saturated fats and if people are looking at decreasing saturated fat they will quite naturally also decrease the trans fats," she said.

"So in regard to labelling I think we're okay."

While labelling of trans fats was not compulsory in Australia, trans fats must be listed if specific health claims were made about a food product.

FSANZ said following healthy eating guidelines would also reduce consumption of trans fats and if people were concerned about what was in their food they could contact the food manufacturer.