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<p>The Government encourages everyone to have a healthy balanced diet in line with
the United Kingdom’s healthy eating model, The Eatwell Guide, which shows that foods
high in saturated fat, salt, or sugar should be eaten less often, or in small amounts.
The Government’s dietary guidelines are based on recommendations from the Scientific
Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) and its predecessor, the Committee on Medical
Aspects of Nutrition Policy (COMA), and based on comprehensive assessments of the
evidence.</p><p>In its 1994 report, Nutritional aspects of cardiovascular disease,
the COMA recommended a reduction in the average contribution of total fat to dietary
energy in the population to approximately 35%, and that trans fats should provide
no more than approximately 2% of dietary energy. In relation to unsaturated fatty
acids, the COMA concluded that: monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) had no specific
recommendation; for n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), there should be no further
increase in average intakes, and the proportion of the population consuming in excess
of about 10% energy should not increase; linolenic acid provided at least 1% of total
energy; and alpha linolenic acid provided at least 0.2% total energy. The report also
included recommendations on saturated fats, which were updated by the SACN in 2019.</p><p>A
joint SACN and Committee on Toxicity report, Advice on fish consumption: benefits
and risks published in 2004, endorsed the recommendation that the population, including
pregnant women, should eat at least two portions of fish per week, one of which should
be oily. Two portions of fish per week, one white and one oily, contains approximately
0.45 grams per day of long chain n-3 PUFA. This recommendation represented an increase
in the population’s average consumption of long chain n-3 PUFA, from approximately
0.2 grams to approximately 0.45 grams per day.</p><p>The SACN’s 2019 report on saturated
fats and health recommended: the dietary reference value for saturated fats remains
unchanged, and the population’s average contribution of saturated fatty acids to total
dietary energy be reduced to no more than approximately 10%, which also applies to
adults and children aged five years and older; and that saturated fats are substituted
with unsaturated fats, as it was noted that more evidence is available supporting
substitution with PUFA than substitution with MUFA.</p>
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