Get the skinny on fat!

Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating encourages Canadians to enjoy a variety of foods and to reduce the amount of fat we eat.

Fat is present in many foods and can be visible or invisible. Visible fat includes trimmable fat on meat and under the skin of chicken. Invisible fat refers to the fat used in processing or preparation of foods (for example, potato chips, muffins, french fries, etc.), as well as the fat we add to our food (for example, butter and margarine to breads or vegetables, cream sauces on pasta and dressing on salads).

The largest proportion of fat in the Canadian diet comes from fats and oils (31%), which include butter, margarine, salad dressings, mayonnaise and fat used for frying.

Fresh meat (pork, beef, lamb and veal) contributes only 8.5% of the total fat in the Canadian diet, of which pork contributes less than 2%! The benefit of eating pork and other meats, is that you get many other key nutrients which help maintain a healthy body.