Small, unremarkable and buried in the pages of a niche medical journal, the study appeared to show that indulging in cookies and brownies was OK — healthy, even — if they were made with vegetable fats.Two days after it was published in December 2000, a full-page ad ran in the New York Times declaring it “groundbreaking.”“The debate is over,” the ad said in bold print. “Margarine wins. Spread it around.”Conducted on mainly white subjects from Texas in the late 1990s, the study showed that when 46 families ate baked goods made with margarine — rather than butter — their cholesterol was lower. Praised at the time, no one paid much attention to its roots in a marketing campaign — it was partly funded and partly designed by the same margarine trade group that paid for the ad. As well, the study neglected to mention that the trans fats in the pale, dairy-less spread fed to these families were by then raising red flags among scientists as a potential cause of heart disease.Despite these troubling facts, this 20-year-old study is one of many that forms what Health Canada calls its most “convincing” evidence for advising Canadians to reach past butter and grab a jug of canola oil.The 2019 Food Guide, released to great fanfare earlier this year, said its advice was based on “the best available evidence” and that its creators tried to keep Big Food’s influence at bay. Dr. Alfred Aziz, director general of Health Canada’s Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion, said in an interview with the Star that the food guide’s advice to all Canadians to eat less fat from butter and more from vegetable sources, will reduce cholesterol and reduce our risk of heart disease. Health Canada said the recommendations on fat are “consistent with those of other countries — such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.”The Star looked at the ...
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