Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Food and Drink

Make it yours
glendabyline

Canada’s Food Guide is practical and flexible, and may be just what your waistband ordered

 

By Glenda Bartosh

Depending on how you look at it, it’s been 65 years in the making or four. Either way, the latest iteration of Canada’s Food Guide is out and here to stay — for at least a while.

Remember last spring when the guide was released, only to be immediately snatched back amidst a flurry of criticism? Back to the drawing board it went, literally, and now we have what regional community nutritionist Dania Matiation calls a clean-looking, comprehensive guide that has all the potential for establishing healthy eating patterns.

The first food guide, called Canada's Official Food Rules, came out in 1942 when food rationing due to World War II followed on the heels of the Great Depression. Obesity and junk food-mania weren’t the problems then — poverty, malnutrition and poor access to food caused officials to come up with a healthy eating guide. It used to include eating potatoes everyday, if you wondered where that all-Canadian habit came from.

The food guide has since dropped the potato habit and morphed through changes at irregular intervals; the current revision began in 2003. The result, which will eventually be released in 14 different languages, is the culmination of input from 7,000-plus doctors, scientists, trade group members, consumers and public health experts.

Sure, you can still find a few burbles of criticism about it — one doctor thought it condones eating way too many calories; another thought it was misleading because of the way processed food is packaged in larger portions today. But overall it seems to be ruffling few feathers, no easy task given its audience is 32.8 million people.

Personally, I like the new food guide, and not just because of the cute retro drawings of food sitting on a rainbow. (The U.S. uses a pyramid; some Asian countries arrange their food guides into pagodas).

I found it clear and easy to use, particularly regarding portion or serving sizes — a half cup of cooked greens or a whole cup of raw ones, half a tortilla, two tablespoons of peanut butter, whatever. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or even a doctor to picture what a serving is. (I’m not sure what guide the above critics were looking at, because this latest version doesn’t even mention calories or what constitutes a portion of pre-packaged foods.)

If you go on-line, you can download your own personalized version, using the number of servings of each food group based on average needs for your age and gender. Plus the guide touches on other issues for good health.

“I’m really thrilled to see a lot of the messages we are covering in public health,” says Dania. “It talks about Vitamin D supplements and drinking lots of water, being active and reading nutritional labels. And they included a bit about the unsaturated, good-for-you oils. I think it’s pretty comprehensive.”

The whole thing, she says, is meant to set up an eating pattern. And the biggest change in that pattern from the previous food guide is the predominance of fruits and vegetables.

“What I love about it is they have flopped the rainbow from grains being the major food group to veggies and fruit — that’s the biggest change,” she says. “So we’re really encouraging people to have as many veggies and fruits as possible and local, of course.” Meaning better nutritionally, economically, environmentally.

“The food guide is basically talking about an eating pattern — that’s the main message. The pattern is mostly green and yellow veggies and fruits with some grains for energy. Then for growth we certainly want some protein and calcium foods.”

Dania has her own way of talking about the four food groups, and it fits with the “rainbow” metaphor. Fruits and veggies she calls “glow” foods for their protective qualities — antioxidants and micro-nutrients that help the body stay healthy, especially with our pollution and stress levels, which were unheard of in the 1940s.

The “go” foods are the grain-based ones, which the body burns for energy. And the “grow” foods are milk and alternatives and meat and alternatives that everyone needs.

A couple of other things worth noting: If you use milk alternatives, Dania advises ones that are fortified with calcium and Vitamin D, ideally in the form of D3, which the body uses more easily than D2. The food guide recommends people over 50 supplement with up to 400 IUs of Vitamin D daily, which helps your body better use calcium and has also been shown to reduce tumour growth.

Also, check out the recommended serving size for meat: 2.5 ounces. Yep, that’s it, not the 8- or 12-ounce size many restaurants serve. Dania says that might equal the area, not the volume, of your fist.

And this is where people seem to take exception to the Canada food guide — quibbling over what constitutes a serving. I’ve seen letters to the editor complaining about the tedium of measuring out portions. But really, folks, it’s not that difficult.

A banana or half a pita is pretty hard to miss. And an apple is an apple. Sure, there are bigger and smaller ones, but you know they mean an average-sized apple.

If you can’t picture a serving that’s half a cup, get out a measuring cup and measure a few until you get the hang of it: half a cup of peas looks like this, half a cup of cooked rice looks like that. If you need some kind of equivalency, find one that works for you — the size of your fist? The area of your palm? A tennis ball?

Just don’t mix up area, or footprint, and volume. And don’t think that a plateful of pasta with a tablespoon of tomato sauce and a cup of cheese on top is a fair serving each of grains, veggies and dairy because that’s how much you usually serve yourself.

If you’re a real bean counter and like to count calories, you’ll have to calculate your own equivalencies. Dania says the guide stayed clear of caloric counts on purpose.

“It’s very complex, but people who get connected with calories can actually be in the whole dieting mind-set,” she says.

If the size of a serving looks like more than you would normally serve yourself, adjust it down, but not up. The guide’s serving sizes are aimed at a post-post-modern generation that’s adopted a skewed sense of portions, eyeballing a tumbler full of orange juice instead of a 3-ounce juice glass, or thinking a grande latte is a “cup” of coffee.

So check it out and see what you think. Google Canada’s Food Guide and download your own copy at hc-sc.gc.ca, or call 1-800-O-Canada (1-800-622-6232) or visit Whistler Health Care Centre for a printed copy. It could be your guide to better living.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who remembers when desserts were served in tiny bowls the size of a champagne glass.