The Heart and Stroke Foundation wants the federal government to regulate the amount of trans fats in Canada’s food supply.
In 2007, Health Canada gave the food industry two years to voluntarily comply with a Trans Fat Task Force recommendation of a two percent limit for all vegetable oils and soft, spreadable margarines and a five percent limit for all other food, including ingredients sold to restaurants.
The deadline expired June 20.
The federal department has published three reports detailing industry’s progress as it attempts to meet the targets. The fourth and final report is due this summer.
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However, the Heart and Stroke Foundation has already reached its conclusions about the effectiveness of the voluntary approach.
“Results from monitoring data to date shows that the levels of trans fats in our foods have not decreased sufficiently,” the group said in a recent news release.
“Our federal government must act now to prepare appropriate regulations.”
The foundation wants Canada to follow the lead of many cities, provinces, states and countries that have passed legislation banning or restricting the unsaturated fat, which contributes to coronary heart disease.
It said high consumption of trans fats leads to a threefold increase in the risk of heart disease and is responsible for almost 3,000 cardiac deaths a year in Canada. Trans fats are at least five times more harmful than saturated fats on a gram-by-gram basis.
Canola has been one of the major beneficiaries of the trans fat bans because it provides a healthy alternative to the partially hydrogenated soybean oil that is responsible for much of the trans fat found in food.
However, the canola industry favours the existing voluntary approach to reducing trans fats.
“The food industry needs to be encouraged to do this without regulation,” said Robert Hunter, the Canola Council of Canada’s vice-president of communications.
He said devising and implementing a regulation would be complex, and the food industry is making progress on its own. It just needs more time.
Health Canada’s most recent monitoring data, released Feb. 12, shows the industry has made considerable progress reducing trans fats in restaurants and grocery stores.
For instance, 78 percent of the 37 fast food chains that Health Canada surveyed offer french fries that follow the five percent trans fat restriction and 80 percent of the pre-packaged food selected for label review met the two percent limit.
However, the department also found areas that need improvement.
Its survey showed that 65 percent of soft margarine is meeting the two percent trans fat goal. The industrial baking sector is also having difficulty making the switch because of taste concerns surrounding longstanding recipes. Only 25 percent of the croissants tested in laboratories met the limit.
Hunter said while considerable progress has been made reducing the amount of trans fats in food, saturated fats appear to be on the rise in some products, which concerns the council.
