It keeps your Twinkie moist. It helps your cinnamon roles last longer. Your fast food is often cooked in it. It’s found in more foods than you likely realize.

For most people, it’s the most unhealthy thing they eat every day.

It’s partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which contain deadly trans fats. It is often added for longer shelf life or to keep foods moist while on the shelf. But a consumer group has asked the federal Food and Drug Administration to ban it from America’s grocery shelves.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest announced its crusade recently, sending a petition to the FDA and launching a campaign to encourage food manufacturers to change the formulas of their products to take the deadly fats out.

“Food-processing companies should worry less about the shelf life of their products and more about the shelf life of their customers,” Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of The Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement. “Getting rid of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil is probably the single easiest, fastest, cheapest way to save tens of thousands of lives each year.”

Trans fats have become a big issue recently. Scientists studying the fats have said that they are deadlier than saturated fats, leading to such problems as heart disease, and the federal government will require food makers to list them on nutrition labels in 2006.

Most foods found on the shelves of truck stop convenience stores contain some partially hydrogenated oils. The list includes:

• Cakes
• Muffins
• Doughnuts
• Peanut butter
• French fries
• Cookies
• Margarine
• Shortening
• Store-bought cake frosting
• Some low-fat ice cream brands
• Toaster pastries
• Some frozen entrées
• Microwave popcorn

But not everyone supports the proposed ban. The National Food Processors Association, an industry group, says the ban is the wrong way to handle the problem.

“Nutrition experts – including FDA – have called for consumers to choose diets low in trans fats, not to eliminate them,” Regina Hildwine, senior director of food labeling and standards for the food processors group, said in a release. “Nutrition experts also have cautioned consumers, in their efforts to reduce trans fat intake, against making dietary choices that lead to a nutritionally inadequate diet or that have other unintended effects, such as replacing trans fats in their diets with saturated fats.

“Clearly, what is needed now is better consumer education on nutrition – particularly on fat intake,” Hildwine said.