The New York City Health Department, with a grant from the American Heart Association, has launched the Trans Fat Help Center to assist restaurants in switching from artificial trans fat to healthier oils while maintaining the same taste and texture of food. The Help Center offers a telephone help line, classes, and web resources in multiple languages, all at no cost to restaurateurs. The Health Department has teamed up with the New York City College of Technology's (City Tech) culinary training program to house the Help Center and convene a group of local and national culinary experts to act as technical advisors.  In December 2006, the NYC Board of Health voted to require that restaurants remove artificial trans fat from food, Beginning July 1, restaurants cannot use trans fat for frying, pan-frying (sautéing), grilling, or as a spread unless product labels or other documents from the manufacturer are kept showing that these ingredients contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. Trans fat-containing oils and shortenings may be used for deep frying cake batter or yeast dough until July 1, 2008. Beginning on that date, no food with 0.5 grams or more of trans fat per serving may be stored, used, or served by food service establishments,      There will be a three -month grace period during which no fines will be assessed for the July 2007 and July 2008 deadline. The regulation does not apply to food served in the manufacturer’s original sealed packaging, such as a package of crackers or a bag of potato chips.