NEW YORK, NY June 23, 2007 —Restaurants and other food providers have less than a week before the city’s ban on transfats kicks in. To help them get ready the Health Department has offered a website and telephone help line. This past week, the department also held its first “transfat school,” and WNYC’s Fred Mogul attended.

REPORTER: At 5pm, after a full workday, keeping students’ attention with a two-hour power point presentation can be tough. But certain methods are tried and true.

FASSBERG: We have delicious 0 transfat grams cookies . . .

REPORTER: While the group nibbled on oatmeal cookies with raisins, instructor and nutritional consultant Elizabeth Fassberg laid out the case against transfats and explained how they can be identified.

FASSBERG: Step 1, when you get a product, look at the package label or ingredient list to see if partially hydrogenated oil, margarine or vegetable shortening is listed.

REPORTER: The transfat ban is being phased in. Starting July, partially they can’t be used as a spread or to fry, sauté, or grill. There’s a three-month grace period, in which inspectors won’t give fines. The ban affects some 35-thousand restaurants, cafes, delis, food carts, caterers and school and institutional cafeterias. Still, not many people seem to be clamoring for a class on transfats.

STANLEY: People are a lot more ready than we thought, and that’s because we’ve done such a good job preparing them.

REPORTER: Laura Stanley, director of the Health Department’s Transfat Help Center, was trying to put a good face on the lackluster attendance. Fewer than 20 people showed up. Almost all of them were from the city’s Department of the Aging, which oversees various senior centers, meals on wheels programs and other services. Three attendees were from restaurants, and of those only Basilia San Pedro of the Busy Ship coffee shop in Brooklyn Heights hadn’t switched over yet.

SAN PEDRO: – We are really concerned about using the oil with high transfats. We will definitely change to non-transfat oil.

REPORTER: Michael Grayner came from Rose’s Restaurant in Sunnyside, Queens, even though he’s been using transfat-free soybean oil for months.

GRAYNER: I was off, so I decided to come here. I learned a few little things. I’ll double-check a few more things when I go back.

REPORTER: An unscientific survey of eateries in Brooklyn and Manhattan suggests many places have already swapped their shortenings or are planning to do so shortly. The Health Department has plans to continue monthly classes, even if attendance is low. But whether or not food preparers have truly “gotten the memo” and are taking it to heart will only become clear as inspectors start hitting the kitchens with their new checklist of outlawed oils in hand.