Many thanks to Sally Fallon Morell for this week’s topic. Sally sent me notification of a recent FDA (U.S. Food & Drug Administration) approval of a “qualified health claim” for soybean oil and coronary heart disease. You can see the full FDA approval letter here.
In February 2016, Bunge Ltd, "Leaders in agribusiness, food and ingredients, fuel and fertilizer", filed a “qualified health claim” petition with the FDA. The claim proposed was: “Supportive but inconclusive scientific evidence suggests that eating about 1 ½ tablespoons (19.5 grams) of soybean oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. To achieve this possible benefit, soybean oil is to replace a similar amount of saturated fat and not increase the total number of calories you eat in a day. One serving of this product contains [x] grams of soybean oil.”
The claim was approved by the FDA in July 2017 with just a couple of tweaks (you can play ‘spot the difference’):
“Supportive but not conclusive scientific evidence suggests that eating about 1 ½ tablespoons (20.5 grams) daily of soybean oil, which contains unsaturated fat, may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. To achieve this possible benefit, soybean oil is to replace saturated fat and not increase the total number of calories you eat in a day. One serving of this product contains [x] grams of soybean oil.”
