Health Canada put out a new food guide this week, and it’s a whole different menu from the old one.
What does it mean for you? The Gazette looks into what’s changed on your dinner plate.
Why the change?
Canada’s current food guide dates back to 2007 and is way out of date, said University of Alberta food marketing professor Sven Anders – most governments update food guides every five years, not 12. That means it’s missed out on a tonne of new health research.It also used a “serving”-based model that even health experts found confusing, said dietitian Alexa Ferdinands. The guide would say, “Eat eight servings of grain a day,” for example, and people would think “eight big bowls of pasta,” whereas the guide actually considered a half-cup of pasta to be a serving. People didn’t realize that, and ended up overeating.
What’s changed?
The presentation, for one. Instead of servings, the new guide simply divvies up the dinner plate, Anders said. About half of what you eat should be fruits and vegetables, a quarter starches (particularly whole grains) and a quarter proteins, which includes milk, meat and other plant-based alternatives. This reflects the many studies that have come out in recent years on how North Americans are eating too much meat and not enough vegetables, and is a similar approach to the U.S. food guide.It also features a glass of water, which it recommends as your drink of choice. Water meets your hydration needs without adding extra calories, Health Canada reports.
The guide also covers eating habits. It recommends you cook more often at home, eat with others and watch your nutrition labels. It also explicitly says you should avoid foods high in salt, sugar and saturated fat.
Everyone knows fat and salt are bad for you, but you can’t avoid them if you eat out, said chef and Paul Kane alumnus Peter Keith.
“If you’re at home cooking, you can reach for the olive oil instead of the less-healthy alternatives,” he said, and think more about what you’re eating.
What happened to meat and dairy?
Meat’s problem is that it’s often high in saturated fat, which is linked to heart disease. A hundred grams of steak might have 18 grams of saturated fat, compared to just 1.5 grams for the same weight in lentils, noted dietitian Emily Mardell. The steak would have zero fibre, while the lentils would have 70 per cent of your daily requirement.“It’s not that we’re not recommending lean meats,” Ferdinands emphasized, but there are a whole bunch of non-meat proteins out there that sometimes get ignored.
Dairy contains protein and other nutrients, but you can get them in a tonne of other foods, Ferdinands noted.
“There’s nothing unique about dairy nutritionally.”
Meat and dairy also have a much bigger environmental impact than plant-based proteins. The World Resources Institute estimates that every million calories of beef consumed worldwide causes roughly 225 tonnes of emissions, compared to less than five for the same amount of fruit, rice, wheat, pulses or vegetables.
That’s because you need more land and energy to grow plants to feed to animals to feed to people than you do when you just eat plants, said Robert Grant, professor of agricultural life and environmental science at the University of Alberta. A kilogram of pork requires about 4 kilograms of grain, for example, while a kilogram of beef requires 15 kilograms of grass.
Ruminants alone (cattle, sheep and goats) account for half of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions and two-thirds of its land use, yet make up just three per cent of American calories, the World Resources Institute reports. The agricultural sector could get halfway to its goal of reducing greenhouse gases if it replaced 30 per cent of the ruminant meat on its plate with plant-based protein by 2050, and other economic sectors would have to make similar reductions in order to stay below 2 C of warming.
I raise and/or sell meat. Am I doomed?
Probably not, Anders said. Canada’s Food Guide is now just one of the many sources of diet advice out there, and Canadians paid little attention to previous versions of it.“I’m convinced this is not going to make people from one day (to) another drop their beef, chicken or pork consumption.”
Still, Anders said, the guide was part of a broader trend toward less meat and dairy consumption that could eventually affect your bottom line. Meat and dairy producers should take this opportunity to remind people about the safe, high-quality nature of Canadian products.
Although his company (Meuwly’s) was all about meat, Keith said eating less meat made sense from a health and environmental perspective. He encourages people to eat smaller amounts of higher-quality meat (like the stuff he sells) so they would enjoy it more.
Anders said the guide’s push to cook more at home could benefit producers by encouraging people to buy more ingredients, but it could also turn people off of restaurants.
Keith said restaurants and take-out places would have to offer more creative experiences for customers to compensate. He personally sees opportunity in at-home meal kits that could offer restaurant-quality food at home, and is working on a take-home pizza kit for his business.
Can I afford it?
It could depend on where you live. Health Canada’s dietary guideline report for the food guide acknowledges that some people, particularly those in remote communities, might not be able to afford or even get the nutritious foods the guide recommends.Dalhousie University's Canada's Food Price Report predicts that fruit and vegetable costs in Canada will jump by up to three and six per cent this year (respectively) while meat will drop by up to three, noted Suzan Krecsy of the St. Albert Food Bank. If you’re already spending half your pay on rent, as some residents do, this will make a food guide diet tough to afford.
Then again, home cooking strengthens family bonds and is way cheaper than eating out, Krecsy said. She’s met food bank visitors who spend hundreds on fast food because they don’t know how to cook.
Krecsy said the best way to get more fruits and vegetables in your diet is to grow your own. If that’s not possible, try legumes and lentils, which are cheap, nutritious and easy to cook in batches. The food bank gives them and whole-grain breads out in its hampers, and offers classes on how to cook with them.
What difference will it make?
It's hard to say. Health Canada says about half of Canada’s deaths from heart disease in 2017 were due to dietary factors such as not eating enough fruits and vegetables. The guide’s diet emphasizes fruit, vegetables and fibre over salt, sugar and saturated fat, and the research behind it suggests this should lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity.The EAT-Lancet Commission recommended a similar vegetable-heavy, meat-light diet earlier this month, and projected that it would prevent some 11 million deaths a year if adopted worldwide.
How do I start?
One step at a time, Keith advised. Try eating one meat-free dinner a week, as he does, or adding one serving of fruit and vegetables to each meal.“There are thousands of incredible cookbooks out there that focus on plant-based meals,” he said, and your friends and relatives probably have good recipes too.
The toughest part is just being willing to try these new foods, he continued. Once you do, you’ll find they’re actually easy to work with.
“And they can be really delicious.”
The Canada Food Guide is available at food-guide.canada.ca.
