Abstract
BACKGROUND: Recently, a study by Dunford et al. (2019) found out that Canadian processed food shave the highest sodium content than other countries. Out of the twelve countries tested in the survey, Canada was ranked the highest. This survey sparked the interest in comparing the healthiness of domestically processed foods and imported foods available in Canada. Pasta sauce was particularly chosen for this research project. By comparing the sodium and saturated fat content between domestic pasta sauce and imported pasta sauce, the study aimed to determine whether imported pasta sauce is a healthier choice. METHODS: This study focused solely on tomato-based pasta sauce. The sodium and saturated fat data were collected from the nutrition facts table of pasta sauces available in grocery stores throughout Metro Vancouver, BC. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data using NCSS 2021 software. Overall, a total of 277 tomato-based pasta sauce samples from Canada, Italy, and the US were collected. As the organic claim of products was considered a potential confounding factor, the samples were further categorized into non-organic and organic. RESULTS: For the sodium content, the analysis result of the organic samples was inconclusive due to the low power (52.3%). There was a significant difference (P = 0.007) in the sodium content between the non-organic US (341 mg/100g) and Italian (286 mg/100g) tomato-based pasta sauce. No significant difference was found between the Canadian (321 mg/100g) US and Italian sauces. For the saturated fat content, the analysis result of the organic samples was again inconclusive due to the low power (35.8%). A significant difference (P = 0.000) in the saturated fat content were found between the non-organic pasta sauce from Canada (0.2 g/100g) and the US (0.6 g/100g), and between sauces from Canada and Italy (0.6 g/100g). CONCLUSION: In terms of sodium level, non-organic Italian tomato-based pasta sauce seems to be the healthiest choice. On the other hand, non-organic Canadian tomato-based pasta sauce has less saturated fat than sauces from the US and Italy. However, the difference is small, and the level of saturated fat in tomato-based pasta, in general, is too low to cause significant health consequences. Larger sample size and elimination of more confounding factors are required to improve the validity of the result.