Canada - Consumers Encouraged to Consider Ingredients Rather than Foods

An Ottawa based nutrition consultant says it's not the food but rather the ingredients used to prepare that food that will make it healthy or unhealthy. The US Food and Drug Administration recommends minimizing the intake of trans fats while Canada is looking at the prospects of banning foods that contain the compounds. Independent Nutrition Consultant Helen Bishop-MacDonald says there's a perception that certain types of food are unhealthy when in fact it's the ingredients that determine the nutritional value of those foods. "People will look at a cake or a dessert and they think, 'that's bad.' Not necessarily. It depends on what was used in the making of that product and I think there is no doubt, trans fatty acids are a very negative part of the Canadian diet. They are produced when vegetable oils are hydrogenated and so when you see the term 'hydrogenated vegetable oil' or 'vegetable oil shortening' you know that this has been an oil that's been subjected to the hydrogenation process and has therefor produced trans fatty acids. What those trans fatty acids will do is not only raise the LDL or the so called bad cholesterol but they also lower the HDL which is the good cholesterol. The human body was not exposed to artificially produced trans fatty acids until about the 1930's when margarines and shortenings were first introduced and they definitely have a negative impact on health. When I see an apple pie, for example, and I'll recoil people think that as a dietitian I'm just naturally against any kind of dessert and that's not true. I love apple pie but I don't want to eat one that's been made with shortening. " Bishop-MacDonald says people are often surprised to learn that she uses naturally occurring animal fats, butter or lard, rather than the artificially produced fats.