Canadian Health Claim Feasibility Assessment Report for Pork Products

Project:13-008 - Researchers: Krista Coventry-Nutrasource Diagnostics

Ontario Pork Research Summary - Project:13-008
Researchers: Krista Coventry-Nutrasource Diagnostics
Funding approved in 2013 and completed that year.

Identifying possible opportunities to make health claims and the steps needed to position pork as a healthful and nutritious protein option may be one way to promote and increase domestic pork consumption. In particular a proven health claim to pork could be used to contest recent research suggesting that read meat and pork has negative health outcomes and could provide an opportunity to distinguish pork from other protein options as a marketing advantage.
 
To this end, Ontario Pork funded Krista Coventry of Nutrasource Diagnostics in 2013 to identify strengths, weaknesses and gaps in regards to linking the consumption of pork with specific health outcomes in humans.  In Canada, food-related health claims have three main categories: function claims, therapeutic or reduced disease risk claims and general health claims. The researcher completed a review of published literature related to pork health attributes and found that while current evidence does not support a health claim for pork, future claims such as heart health and satiety could be possible for Canadian pork.

The researcher’s suggestion of heart health as a claim was based on a study of pork fortified with Omega 3’s so further work could not be generalized to conventionally produced pork. Satiety claims are considered function claims as they are based on the food changing the sensation of appetite, such as increasing the sense of fullness.  This effect could be beneficial and appealing to individuals who wish to reduce their body weight or are striving to maintain a healthy body weight.  The researcher indicated that satiety has been successfully accepted as a health claim of pork in other countries such as Australia. 

In Canada, satiety claims must be comparative, so quality Canadian studies are needed to demonstrate that pork provides a reduced sense of hunger over other proteins before a label claim could be applied for. In general, a minimum of two independent, well-designed studies are needed to demonstrate reproducibility of the effect of the food in order to apply to Health Canada for a health claim.  However if these studies are pursued, there could be even more reasons to put pork on your fork.