Canadian authorities are weighing appeals from marketers of ground beef who don’t want their products flagged under an impending health warning law.
Health Canada, the department responsible for governmental health initiatives, is due to issue regulations in a few weeks for health nutrition warning labels. Broadly speaking, the warnings will be mandated for food and beverage products with more than 15% per serving of the recommended daily allowance for saturated fat, salt or sugar.
Some food categories will be exempted, like certain dairy products and whole-muscle meats. Processors and retailers of ground beef are lobbying to get that exempted also, on the ground that their fat content is already regulated and spelled out on packaging.
The meat industry and some conservatives in Parliament have urged a delay in implementation of the warning system altogether. However, proponents note that Health Canada has been having discussions about it since 2016.
“The amount of discussions and consultations that have taken place on this issue is almost unparalleled,” a spokesman for a cardiac health foundation told the Toronto Globe and Mail. “So we’re very wary of people calling for more time for consultations and discussions, because that is a delay tactic.”