Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. We appreciate the invitation to appear before you today.
I'm very glad to hear you discuss the role that physical activity and the overall diet play in the health of our children. I'm going to talk about one piece of the diet only, and that's the consumption of fats.
I'm going to spend just a minute explaining who we are. Mr. Merrifield is aware of us, given his involvement in the agriculture sector, but I thought it would be worth while just to talk about the canola industry for a second.
There are 52,000 farmers, almost all of them in western Canada, who grow canola. They grow it on 13 million acres, which is about 18% of the arable land. Canola represents 33% to 50% of the revenue derived by farmers every year, so this crop is incredibly important to the agriculture industry. We have an overall value of $11 billion, and essentially employ 215,000 to 216,000 people across Canada. So essentially, we are the largest group of cash-producer farmers in Canada. That's who we are.
I'd like to talk about what we bring to the table, and I mean that literally in this case. Canola is considered one of the healthiest oils for human consumption around the world. In fact, we've just received an FDA-qualified health claim, one of only five granted for foods in the United States, on the basis of prevention of coronary heart disease. For the Canadian marketplace, we represent about 45% of the salad oil and cooking oils consumed, but we also are a major supplier to the processed foods that our children are eating.
We know that dietary fat does play an important role in nutrition. It is a concentrated source of energy. It does provide essential fatty acids. It's a carrier for fat-soluble vitamins and it does contribute to the overall palatability of food. In addition, some types of dietary fat can actually have health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart disease and diabetes. However, too much fat is bad. And we know that. So we have been taking a lot of time and making an effort to talk about not just too much, but what fat. What's a good fat? What is a bad fat? How do these fats contribute to the overall nutrition profile?
Essentially, there are three fatty acids, and these three families are saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. Each has a different effect on health. Canola has 7% saturated fat. It is the lowest of the saturated-fat oils. We have 32% of polyunsaturates and 61% of monounsaturates. So it's a well-balanced fat.
I don't need to explain to this group that how you tell saturated from unsaturated is whether or not it's solid. That's essentially what clogs the arteries. So the less saturated the fat, the less clogging of the arteries.
Because it is rich in monounsaturated fat, canola has been shown to be very effective in reducing heart disease. In addition, we are finding that monounsaturated fats have a favourable effect on blood glucose levels and in controlling type 2 diabetes, which is a disease that is increasingly prevalent in children. In addition, canola oil contains both omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, and those are the essential fatty acids. Canola has ALA, alpha-linolenic acid, and that has been shown to lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
We also have a role with respect to vitamin E. Canola is a natural source of vitamin E, which again reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer, and memory loss.
When it comes to health, perhaps the breakthrough we've had is the creation of a new kind of canola. This is called high-stability canola oil, which allows us to replace partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, essentially eliminating transfat.
I don't know how many of you may have watched the news in the last few days, but Kentucky Fried Chicken just announced that it will eliminate transfat in their restaurants, and they've chosen high stability canola oil to do that. Essentially they've made this change in response to customer demand, and we're very proud to have been able to provide the product that solves the problem.
We would like to commend the government for the work it's done on the food guide. There will be notification of both healthy and unhealthy fats, and we appreciate that. We agree. We were consulted extensively during the food guide development process, and we believe the food guide will send a very important signal to all Canadians.
But I'd also like to say—and this is something completely different from the health committee—that government can play a helping role in the creation of these innovative health-based food products, by continuing to support science-based regulation and promote research and development in this country.
Canola is the world's only made-in-Canada crop, and we have now provided the first solution for transfats.
This is not an exhaustive list of what the government might do, but we would strongly encourage continued pressure on the system to provide healthy eating choices for young people, as well as for us middle-aged people. We are an agriculture-based country, and we can be part of the solution for obesity.