Health Committee on Feb. 17th, 2011

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

What about the salt?

[Joyce Reynolds]

Sodium is a much different....

I forgot to say that in terms of trans fat, we are extremely proud of how quickly our members responded to the trans fat imperative—very efficiently and very effectively.

In terms of sodium, we're getting the same type of response. It's a much more complex ingredient to change. It's required, as well as for the taste, for functionality; it's a lot more challenging. All I can say is that we are committed, in terms of the sodium reduction strategy.

[Garth Whyte]

And we're 10% of the source of meals—

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

Mr. Whyte, I'm sorry.

Ms. Duncan.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'm splitting the time, if I may.

Thank you.

I'm really struggling with this. Salt is an urgent public health issue. Canadians consume 3,400 milligrams—more than double the recommended, at 1,500. I'm going to come back at this by asking, why aren't we going after a mandatory reduction?

[Joyce Reynolds]

Right now, all I can say is we have extremely aggressive targets to meet by 2016 to bring down our sodium from the current level of 3,400 to 2,300, and we are—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Which is still well above 1,500.

[Joyce Reynolds]

—committed as an industry to do the product reformulation in order to meet those targets.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Are you aware of who is on the membership of FRAC?

[Joyce Reynolds]

Yes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Is it possible to table with this committee who the members are?

[Joyce Reynolds]

You can pull it right off the Internet. In fact, there are short bios on all 19 members of the FRAC.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'm really struggling with voluntary versus mandatory. So even if we come down to the 2,300 level, it's still going to be voluntary.

[Joyce Reynolds]

I think what we have—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

And what is our success rate? Have we measured what the success rate is when it has been voluntary targets, how well we've done in meeting those across the industry?

[Joyce Reynolds]

Trans fats are an example where the industry was extremely responsive. Again, as I say, sodium is more—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Was that information ever tracked? Do we actually have data on...?

[Joyce Reynolds]

Yes, there was monitoring that was done, and Health Canada is committed to doing the same monitoring in terms of sodium.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Could that be tabled with the committee, what monitoring was done and what the success rate is? And how will monitoring take place with the new targets?

[Joyce Reynolds]

That is something that Health Canada is working towards right now. They're in the process of—

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Tim Uppal]

Thank you, Dr. Duncan.

We will move on to Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

And thanks very much to each of our presenters here today. I certainly have enjoyed hearing what you've had to say, and it's been a good addition to the study we're doing, so we appreciate that.

Just carrying on a little bit further with the sodium issue, I'll ask the Restaurant and Foodservices Association a question on your booklet “How to Reduce Sodium in Menu Items”. On page 18, at the bottom, you have the chart, which says “Frequency of Adding Salt at the Table”. Where it says “Never”, then 2,927 milligrams per day would be the average intake. If you do add it at the table “Very Often”, it's only 3,396. And I'm saying “only” to express a difference between them; I'm not saying that to mean it's not very much.

So most of our sodium intake, then, is coming from other things occurring, either when it's cooked or in the food, not when we put it on freely at the table. Is that correct?

[Joyce Reynolds]

According to population health surveying that Health Canada has done, that's right.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

All right. Thank you.

Now I'd like to ask a question—

[Garth Whyte]

May I quickly comment? I've been dying to comment on something here.