Assessing the impact of replacing foods high in saturated fats with foods high in unsaturated fats on dietary fat intake among Canadians

• Published in: The American journal of clinical nutrition 2022-03, Vol.115 (3), p.877-885
• Main Authors: Harrison, Stéphanie, Lemieux, Simone, Lamarche, Benoît
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS)–Nutrition; Canada; Canada’s Food Guide (CFG); Canadians; Diet; Dietary Fats; dietary guidelines; Dietary intake; Fats; Fats, Unsaturated; Fatty Acids; Food; Food intake; Humans; Nutrients; Nutrition; Original Research Communications; Recommender systems; saturated fats; Substitutes; substitution; unsaturated fats
• ISSN: 0002-9165; 1938-3207
• DOI: 10.1093/ajcn/nqab420

The 2019 Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) recommends that foods containing mostly unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) should replace foods that contain mostly SFA to reduce SFA intakes. The objective of this study was to model the theoretical changes in intake of SFA at the population level if all Canadians adhered to that recommendation. Dietary intakes from 24-h recalls in the nationally representative 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey–Nutrition were used for these analyses. Foods identified as high in SFA based on Health Canada’s criteria [≥2 g SFA per reference amount and/or ≥15% of energy (%E) of the food’s content as SFA] were replaced by an equal amount (gram per gram) of substitution foods that were lower in SFA and had a higher UFA to SFA ratio. Distributions of SFA and other nutrients before and after substitutions were estimated using the National Cancer Institute (NCI) method based on dietary intakes data from a 24-h recall repeated in 37% of the population. The mean (95% CI) dietary SFA intake among Canadians 2 y or older would be theoretically reduced from 10.8%E (10.7, 11.0%E) to 5.8%E (5.7, 5.9%E) if all high-SFA foods consumed were replaced by the corresponding low-SFA/high-UFA foods. Modeled usual intake of SFA after substitution was