For Health Canada, some saturated fats are more equal than others

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Appears to be like like we are going to all see completely different symbols on meals packaging quickly, telling us whether or not a meals product on the grocery retailer has an excessive amount of fats, sugar or sodium.

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Well being Canada is probably going going ahead shortly with a coverage requiring front-of-package vitamin symbols on meals excessive in saturated fats, sugars and sodium. It’s an idea that can present clear, easy-to-read labels, however one a part of Well being Canada’s plan is a headscratcher.

The brink Well being Canada intends to use is kind of easy. For ready meals or processed meals, and meals supposed solely for youngsters one to 4 years of age, it’s 15% DV (Day by day Values). Which means that if a product’s serving exceeds 15% of the utmost every day allowance for saturated fats, sugar or sodium, a label will probably be predominantly positioned on the package deal for the patron to see straight away. For prepackaged meals and dishes, the edge is 30%.

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On the face of it, the coverage seems to make sense. It’s laborious to argue towards extra readability, extra transparency, and because of this, higher shopper well being. However the place issues get murky is after we begin wanting on the listing of exemptions. Many merchandise will probably be exempt from this coverage. For instance, merchandise at a farmers market, merchandise not offered on to shoppers, non-processed uncooked single-ingredient meat and fish merchandise, all dairy merchandise, and eggs. The listing consists of technical, sensible and health-related exemptions, with 16 classes in whole.

What’s shocking, although, is that each floor beef and pork are usually not exempt. That’s proper. Which means that in a couple of months from now, floor beef and pork, two unprocessed, pure and inexpensive animal protein sources, which many shoppers eat each day, will probably be labelled as having an excessive amount of saturated fats. In the meantime, dairy merchandise, which arguably comprise no less than as a lot saturated fats, are exempt.

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Some sources imagine the extremely highly effective dairy foyer supplied sufficient proof and scientific knowledge to Well being Canada to counsel that saturated fat present in dairy merchandise are completely different, and more healthy. That could be the case, however Well being Canada actually has some explaining to do, contemplating the way it butchered dairy merchandise with the newest meals information, launched a couple of years in the past.

The dearth of consistency is mind-blowing. As well as, each beef and pork do exceed thresholds set by Well being Canada when merchandise are uncooked, not cooked. Nonetheless, few will eat these merchandise uncooked. When cooked, saturated fats ranges are usually under the Well being Canada threshold.

PROTEIN AFFORDABILITY

What’s important right here is protein affordability. Whereas retail costs for beef and pork specialty cuts have skyrocketed in recent times, each floor beef and pork have been comparatively inexpensive. In truth, nearly 50% of beef consumed in Canada is floor beef. Nonetheless, Well being Canada intends to slap a warning label on these merchandise that are consumed by greater than 90% of Canadians, whereas our meals inflation fee is at about 10%.

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Discriminating towards these two merchandise regardless of exemptions is probably going pushed by elitist dietary ideologies fostered by some out-of-touch bureaucrats. It usually feels as if Ottawa needs to save lots of shoppers from themselves. Such a theoretical narrative may go over properly in Ottawa, however not a lot on the common Canadian kitchen desk.

Each beef and pork industries are usually not solely essential to our financial system, however these sectors are additionally a part of many Canadian traditions and are embedded in our culinary DNA. As we attempt to determine the way to lead more healthy existence, warning Canadians that these unprocessed meals staples are actually harmful to their well being doesn’t make sense. Dietary suggestions, like most issues, needs to be utilized sparsely.

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Canada would develop into one of many first international locations on the earth to have a front-of-package coverage focusing on single-ingredient merchandise. Many different international locations earlier than Canada with such a labelling haven’t required single-ingredient merchandise to have such warning labels.

On the core of the coverage is the intent to assist shoppers make higher, more healthy selections on the grocery retailer, notably when processed meals are concerned. Requiring floor beef and pork to be labelled means that the spirit of the coverage itself acquired misplaced between the a number of conferences Well being Canada had with stakeholders whereas framing this coverage.

In essence, Well being Canada is purposefully aiming at two crucial Canadian meals staples that individuals have been consuming for hundreds of years. Such a transfer is senseless in anyway. These merchandise fairly merely should be exempt from new front-of-package labelling guidelines.

— Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a professor and senior director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie College and co-host of The Meals Professor podcast