Opinión del Comité Científico de la Agencia Española de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (AESAN) relativa a la propuesta de la Comisión Europea (CE) sobre alegaciones nutricionales de ácidos grasos monoinsaturados (AGM) en alimentos y consideraciones sobre la misma aportadas por la Autoridad Europea de Seguridad Alimentaria

[EN]: In the context of the Proposal of Regulation concerning the use of nutrition and health claims in the labelling, presentation and advertising of foods, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued a Scientific Opinion on possible nutrition claims related to omega-3 fatty acids, monouns...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Palou Oliver, Andréu, Juárez, Manuela, Monereo Megías, Susana, Otero Carballeira, Andrés, García Muriana, Francisco José
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2007
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/245876
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/245876
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA)
Saturated fatty acids (SFA)
Poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA),
Unsaturated fatty acids (UFA)
Nutrition claims
Olive oil
Oleic acid
Ácidos grasos monoinsaturados (AGM)
Ácidos grasos saturados (AGS)
Ácidos grasos poliinsaturados (AGP)
Ácidos grasos insaturados (AGI)
Alegaciones nutricionales
Aceite de oliva
Ácido oleico
Descripción
Sumario:[EN]: In the context of the Proposal of Regulation concerning the use of nutrition and health claims in the labelling, presentation and advertising of foods, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued a Scientific Opinion on possible nutrition claims related to omega-3 fatty acids, monounsaturated fat, unsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat. This Opinion is an initial response to a question raised by the European Commission in the following terms: “The European Commission requests the EFSA to issue an opinion on the scientific substantiation of the nutrition claims relating to omega-3 fatty acids, monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat and unsaturated fat.” In this context the Authority is asked to review the scientific merits of the following proposed claims and advise on their addition to the Annex of the proposed Regulation: High monounsaturated fat: A claim that a food is high in monounsaturated fat, and any claim likely to have the same meaning for the consumer, may only be made where at least 45% of the fatty acids present in the product derive from monounsaturated fat under the condition that saturated fat must not provide more than 10% of energy”. The criteria proposed by the European Commission for monounsaturated fat claim (SFA<10%) is contradictory to the recommendation expressed by their own EFSA Scientific Panel in its report, in the same way that it contradicts what has been endorsed by several national and international organizations. The Scientific Panel of EFSA considers to be an anomaly the fact that, while olive oil is a good monounsaturated fatty acids source, it cannot qualify for the “high monounsaturated fat” claim, when failing to fulfil the additional condition of which the saturated fatty acids content in the product must be less than 10% of the energy. After considering scientific aspects of greatest interest related to the matter, the Scientific Committee of the AESAN concludes that the criteria proposed by the European Commission erroneously considers olive oil to be excluded from the possibility of showing the claim “high monounsaturated fat” based just on the condition that saturated fat must not provide more than 10% of energy. Numerous independent scientific opinions, including that of EFSA, demonstrate that beneficial effects have been observed when increasing the relationship between the content of monounsaturated fatty acids and saturated fatty acids, a circumstance that occurs in olive oil (main monounsaturated fatty acids source of the Mediterranean diet), a product whose consumption is recommended at an international level.