Bunge petitioned the FDA to approve a qualified health claim
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruling surrounding soybean oil is good news for soybean producers.
The FDA ruled that people who consume soybean oil are less likely to experience coronary heart disease - a disease responsible for killing about 365,000 Americans in 2014, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The FDA outlined two specific guidelines in its ruling, which will allow companies to communicate soybean oil’s health benefits.
There is “supportive but not conclusive scientific evidence that suggests eating about 1 ½ tablespoons (20.5 grams) daily of soybean oil, which contains unsaturated fat, may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease,” Douglas Balentine, director of the Office of Nutrition and Food Lableing, said in a letter to Mark Stavro, global marketing director for Bunge Limited.
“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.”
And there is also “supportive but not conclusive scientific evidence that suggests eating about 1 ½ tablespoons (20.5 grams) daily of soybean oil, which contains unsaturated fat, may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease,” Balentine wrote in the letter.
“To achieve this possible benefit, soybean oil is not to increase the amount of saturated fat in the diet or the total number of calories you eat in a day. One serving of this product contains (x) grams of soybean oil.”
Bunge filed an independent petition in February 2016. The petition included summaries of human clinical studies from nutrition researchers.
The FDA’s ruling is also a victory for America’s soybean farmers, who produced over 24 billion pounds of soybean oil in 2016, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service.
“The oil market is extremely important for U.S. soybean farmers...,” Ron Moore, president of the American Soybean Association, said in a release today. “As we compete within the market against other oils, having FDA recognize the ability of soybean oil…is a benefit to producers and consumers alike."