Playing It Safe
by author Michelle Hancock

Ask a dozen people, “What’s the key to healthy eating?” and you’ll probably get a dozen different answers. Ask Mary Bush at Health Canada, and she’ll direct you to Canada’s revised Food Guide to be released this fall.

Since its last update in 1992, a lot has changed–food trends, modern lifestyles, and yes, the typical waistline. The much-needed revisions began in mid-2002 and involved input from everyone–trade groups, certainly, but also the average consumer. Still, some critics suggest the revised Food Guide won’t go far enough in disease prevention and the fight against obesity.

What’s New

You’ll recognize the four food groups–grain products, vegetables and fruit, milk products, and meat and alternatives—but the recommended daily servings are new.

“In the past,” says Bush, Director General of the Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion, “we had wide ranges. People said, ‘I don’t know where I fit.’ The revised guide is age and gender specific. We tried to focus on the appropriate amount of food, so nobody thinks they need to eat more than necessary.”

Take grain products. The previous five to twelve recommended daily servings now shifts to between three and eight–three for two- or three-year olds of both sexes, and to eight for 19- to 50-year-old men. Females 19 to 30 are urged to eat the most grains, at seven servings daily.

For fruits and vegetables, the old “five to ten” guideline will range from four to nine daily servings, with a five-to-eight intake in most sex and age categories.

The recommended daily intake of milk products has remained at two to four servings, but the Food Guide encourages us, “Drink lower-fat milk or fortified plant-based beverages most of the time.”

Then there’s the meat and alternatives category, which has increased from the across-the-board two to three servings per day, to four servings in males 14 and older.

Don’t Forget the Small Print

The updated Food Guide (as pitched last spring in its draft version) also features additional advice on eating, shopping tips, and label reading, expanding its original two pages into an eight-page foldout.

A “Tips on Vegetables and Fruit” section, for example, urges us to eat dark green and orange vegetables, at least one of each per day; to choose veggies and fruit more often than juice; and to go for steamed or stir-fried rather than fried.

It’s no secret Canadians don’t eat enough fruits and veggies. In fact, only 43 percent of respondents to a 2005 survey by Campbell’s Company said they get their recommended five to ten servings. Another 2005 survey by the Canadian Produce Marketing Association found only 25 percent of people eat enough fruits and vegetables, even though 87 percent of us darned well know that this food group helps prevent disease. So here’s a question: Will the small print make a difference?

“It’s good because people know they need to eat more variety,” says Kitty Yung, a registered dietitian in Vancouver. She’s also enthusiastic about the bigger emphasis on whole grains and the dairy section’s inclusion of soy products.

Dial-a-Dietitian, where Yung works, is a nutrition hotline where staff frequently respond to Food Guide-related questions. “We use it as a resource to counsel people,” she says. (Twenty-four million copies of the 1992 version were distributed nationwide and it’s Health Canada’s most popular website.)

Convention Versus Innovation

But Jonathan Prousky, ND, chief naturopathic medical officer and associate professor of clinical nutrition of the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine, had a few criticisms when he emailed Health Canada during their period of public input.

“In general, they’re fine recommendations,” he says, “but the problem is they aren’t innovative. They could actually increase health by being less conventional.”

One of his critiques concerns beneficial fats, or essential fatty acids. “There’s very little in the new guidelines. Omega-3s from fish can reduce cardiovascular mortality and morbidity, as well as being good for the brain. They’re even good against depression, mood disorders,
schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. The guide should recommend 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams of fish oils a day.”

Vancouver writer Michelle Hancock is especially interested in health and environmental issues. She can be reached through editorial@alive.com.

Source: alive #287, September 2006