1. ¹Bureau of Nutritional Sciences, Food Directorate, Health Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2. ²Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
3. ³Departments of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

Correspondence: Dr D Mozaffarian, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Bldg 2-319, Boston, MA 02115, USA. E-mail: dmozaffa@hsph.harvard.edu

Received 28 February 2008; Revised 7 May 2008; Accepted 1 June 2008; Published online 2 July 2008.

Abstract

The impact of recent efforts to reduce the content of industrially produced trans fatty acids (TFA) in foods has not been systematically assessed in any country. Concerns exist that food manufacturers/restaurants may replace TFA with saturated fat acids (SFA), rather than cis unsaturated fats, or increase the total fat content. We present findings from a national systematic assessment of grocery and restaurant foods likely to contain TFA in Canada in 2005–2007. Of the total of 221 assessed products, 92 (42%) contained TFA (5% of fatty acids) on initial assessment. Of an unselected sample assessed more than once, 72% were reformulated during 2005–2007: means.d. TFA levels decreased from 2613 to 24%. Following reformulation, one product had similar TFA+SFA content; all others had decreased TFA+SFA and increased cis unsaturated fat content. The total fat content was generally unaffected. The findings suggest that manufacturers/restaurants generally take advantage of costs and efforts of reformulation to not only reduce TFA but also increase the content of cis unsaturated fats.