Corey Pierce

If we could prevent every death from breast cancer and car accidents in Canada, would we?

February was heart month. The cause was sullied somewhat by the exposé of truths behind the Health Check logo on CBC’s Marketplace. Beyond any efforts at damage control, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, a federation of 10 provincial foundations supported by over 140,000 volunteers, spent a huge amount of time, money and effort to raise awareness of the fact that every seven minutes, a Canadian dies of heart disease or stroke. It’s the No. 1 cause of death in this country. Our odds are one in three.

Stroke costs the Canadian economy $2.7 billion a year in physician services, hospital costs, lost wages and decreased productivity. In other words, it’s a big deal. The Heart and Stroke Foundation aims to eliminate heart disease and stroke and reduce their impact through the advancement of research and its application, the promotion of healthy living and advocacy.

I would think that beyond research, a more effective way of reducing deaths from heart disease would be to eliminate one of the larger contributing factors — namely, manufactured trans fats.

In 2003, Denmark banned man-made trans fats completely. This doesn’t mean it banned cookies, crackers and other packaged or fast food — it just banned the man-made partially hydrogenated oils that are so harmful, even a two per cent increase in regular intake (about a teaspoon, or 40 calories' worth), translates to a 23 per cent increased risk of death from heart disease or heart attack. Because it raises bad cholesterol while lowering good cholesterol, trans fat is far more hazardous than saturated fat, which raises both the good and the bad. No amount of man-made trans fat is safe.

Since implementing the ban, Denmark has marked a 20 per cent decrease in deaths from heart disease and heart attack. In Canada, 20 per cent is double the number of deaths from breast cancer annually. It’s three times the number of deaths from car accidents. If this many deaths could be prevented just by passing a bill eliminating man-made trans fats from our food supply, perhaps awareness needs to be raised in Ottawa. (These numbers don’t take into account the reduced rates of diabetes and obesity that would also result, and the diseases and deaths associated with them.) Of course, Ottawa already knows this: trans fats were referred to by the government's own trans fat task force as a toxin in our food supply that was unsafe at any level. They've had two committees of experts recommend a national trans fat ban. If there was another manufactured substance found in food products that was directly linked to as many deaths, my guess is it wouldn’t be tolerated.

Unfortunately, Girl Guide Cookies contain trans fats. (Ironically, the organization’s cookie tagline is “A great recipe for growing girls.”) Cookie season is March until June, so guides will soon be coming door to door with their chocolate and vanilla sandwiches. I’m not encouraging anyone to not support Girl Guides of Canada — it’s a fantastic organization that does more for young girls than any other I can think of. However, Dare produces Girl Guide Cookies, and the fact that almost all of the other cookies Dare produces no longer contain trans fats suggests that it’s entirely possible for them to make Girl Guide Cookies trans fat free as well. They shouldn’t be difficult to reformulate. When two guides came to my door last year, I gave them $10 and quickly explained why I wasn’t taking the cookies.

What can we do to encourage Ottawa to ban trans fats? Send a letter to your MP, or to Conservative MP Rob Merrifield, chairman of the standing committee on health. No postage is needed when sending a letter to the prime minister, governor general, senators and members of parliament at their Parliament Hill offices.