India, May 27 -- When India's Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) capped industrially produced trans fatty acids (iTFA) at 2 per cent of total fat in January 2022, we did something remarkable. We became the first lower-middle-income country in the world to bring a World Health Organization gold-standard trans fat elimination policy into effect - a measure that could potentially protect more than 1.4 billion people from its harmful effects. Leading the way among South Asian countries and ahead of many nations with higher GDP per capita, our country drew the line.

That was the easy part.

More than four years later, the regulation exists at the national level, but operational enforcement remains uneven across the country, ...