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

BACKGROUND: 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.
OBJECTIVES: 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.
METHODS: 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.
RESULTS: 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 <10%E in 100% of Canadians, irrespective of sex and age. Almost half (44%) of the modeled reduction in SFA intake was attributed to replacement of SFA-rich foods not recommended in the 2019 CFG.
CONCLUSIONS: This food-based substitution modeling analysis suggests that consumption of SFA would be below 10%E in Canada if all Canadians adhered to the 2019 CFG recommendation that foods containing mostly UFA should replace foods that contain mostly SFA.