June 2012

Canadian consumers will soon be getting the message that switching fats is good for your heart. Health Canada, the nation’s equivalent of the US FDA, approved a health claim for food labels stating that replacing saturated fat with mono- and polyunsaturated fat, such as that in liquid vegetable oils, can reduce unhealthy cholesterol. The Vegetable Oil Industry of Canada, a trade group, promptly announced a new logo for food packaging to promote this health benefit. In approving the claim, only the ninth okayed since 2003, Health Canada pointed to research showing that for every gram of daily saturated fat replaced, LDL cholesterol drops 0.4% to 2.8%. Such benefits can appear after just two and a half weeks of dietary changes. In the US, the FDA approved qualified health claims for olive oil in 2004, canola oil in 2006 and corn oil in 2007.