trans Fatty Acid Content of Canadian Margarines Prior to Mandatory trans Fat Labelling

Dietary trans fatty acids (TFA) are of major concern because of their adverse effects on blood lipid levels and coronary heart disease. In Canada, margarines were significant sources of TFA during the 1980s and 1990s. However, this is expected to change with increased public awareness over their adverse health effects and the introduction of new legislature to include TFA content on the Nutritional Facts table of food labels. In this study, the TFA content of the top-selling 29 Canadian margarines, which represented 96.3% of the market share, was determined by capillary gas-liquid chromatography in order to assess the influence of regulatory development during the 3-year transition period between the announcement of new food labelling regulations in Canada that require mandatory declaration of the trans fat content in most pre-packaged foods in January 2003 and its enforcement on 12 December 2005. The 29 margarines included 15 tub margarines made from non-hydrogenated vegetable oils (NHVO-tub margarines), 11 tub margarines made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (PHVO-tub margarines) and three print margarines, which were also made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (PHVO-print margarines). The 15 NHVO tub-margarines accounted for 71% of the total margarine market share and generally contained less than 2% TFA (mean value 0.9 ± 0.3% of total fatty acids). The mean total TFA contents of PHVO-tub margarines and PHVO-print margarines, were 20.0 ± 4.5% and 39.6 ± 3.5%, and their market shares were 19.3 and 6.0%, respectively. Although during the last 10 years, increasing number of soft tub margarines that contained very little trans fats have been made available in Canada, the PHVO-tub- and -print margarines still contain high levels of trans fats similar to those margarines that were sold in the 1990s. The market share data suggest that the margarines prepared using NHVO and containing almost no TFA were preferred by Canadians over those margarines prepared using PHVO, even before the mandatory declaration of TFA content came into effect on 12 December 2005.