Fat sources in the Belgian diet.

Food consumption data from the Belgian Interuniversity Research on Nutrition and Health study (n = 11,302) were analyzed with regard to fat intake. Intakes of macronutrients were compared between several subgroups in the population. The major objective was to quantify the contribution of food groups and individual food items to the intake of total fat, polyunsaturated (PUFA), monounsaturated (MUFA) and saturated (SFA) fat in the Belgian diet. These results are compared to nutritional guidelines and Italian, US and Dutch data. Major sources of fat are butter (16% of the total intake) and baking margarine (8%). Major sources of SFA are butter (24%) and cheese (8%), of MUFA butter (13%) and baking margarine (9%), and of PUFA diet margarine (23%) and mayonnaise (11%).