Trans fatty acids: current contents in Canadian foods and estimated intake levels for the Canadian population.

Research conducted in the mid-1990s indicated that the levels of trans fats in Canadian diets were among the highest in the world. The consumption of trans fats raises blood levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol, while reducing levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol. In June 2007, Health Canada called on the food industry to voluntarily reduce levels of trans fats in vegetable oils and soft (tub)-margarines to < 2% of total fat, and in all other foods, to < 5%. Industry must show satisfactory progress by June 2009, or Health Canada might have to introduce legislation to ensure that recommended limits are achieved. Since 2005, Health Canada has been performing a national assessment of prepackaged and restaurant foods that likely contain trans fats. From 2005 to 2009, 1120 samples were analyzed, of which 852 or approximately 76% met the recommended trans fat limits. As a result of reformulation, most of the products had decreased trans + saturated fat content. The estimated average intake of trans fatty acids (TFA) in Canada significantly dropped from the high value of 8.4 g/day in the mid-1990s to 3.4 g/day (or 1.4% food energy) in 2008. However, this TFA intake of 1.4% of energy is still above the World Health Organization recommended limit of TFA intake of < 1% of energy, which suggests that the Canadian food industry needs to put more effort into reducing the TFA content in its products, especially in tub-margarines, donuts, and bakery products.

Determination of deoxynivalenol in soft wheat by immunoaffinity column cleanup and LC-UV detection: interlaboratory study.

An interlaboratory study was conducted to assess the applicability of a previously validated method for the analysis of deoxynivalenol (DON) in cereal and cereal products to soft wheat in the range of >0.1-3.0 microg/g. The study evaluated a generic method to determine DON at levels that bracket the existing Canadian guidelines for DON in soft wheat destined for use in baby foods and nonstaple foods. Collaborators selected one of 2 approved brands of DON immunoaffinity column for cleanup and their choice of qualified C18 liquid chromatographic (LC) column. Separation was by LC with UV detection. Blind duplicates from 5 levels of naturally contaminated wheat and a pair of spiked wheat samples were successfully analyzed by 12 laboratories in 8 countries. For samples naturally contaminated with DON from <0.1-2.2 microg/g, the relative standard deviation of repeatability (RSDr) ranged from 3.1 to 14.8%. For reproducibility, the RSDR ranged from 21.0 to 32.9% and the HorRat range was 1.0 to 1.9. Recoveries of 0.5 microg/g DON spiked into wheat ranged from 66 to 98%, with an average of 84%. The RSDr was 5.4%, the RSDR was 12.6%, and the HorRat value was 0.7.