Does the new food guide allow for alternative diets and provide the healthiest choices for Canadians? Maya Reid talks to experts on both sides of the issue.
Graphics by Paloma Callo.
Health Canada released a new food guide, the first update of the guide since 2007. It takes a different approach to previous iterations. Rather than recommending specific serving sizes, it represents proportionally how much each food group should feature in your diet.
According to the food guide, half of your diet should be fruits and vegetables. A quarter should be protein, with an emphasis on plant-based proteins and recommending that you keep servings of red meat and fish to a minimum—one to two portions a week. The remaining 25 per cent of your diet should be grains, primarily whole grain.
Gone are the categories for dairy and fats, which are now combined into the protein section.
David Harper, a member of the scientific advisory board of the Canadian Clinicians for Therapeutic Nutrition, criticized the new food guide for being too restrictive.
“There’s a more political than science-based movement. A true vegan diet is not sustainable because it lacks certain nutrients, and people are adopting vegan diets as much for political reasons as perhaps health reasons.”
– David Harper, a member of the scientific advisory board of the Canadian Clinicians for Therapeutic Nutrition
Harper said the new food guide diet broken down involves about 10-15 per cent of calories from protein, 15-20 per cent fat, leaving 65-75 per cent to carbs.
Harper said high carbohydrate diets are not healthy, and that the absence of “healthy fats,” such as olive oil and avocado oil, is a problem.
“It appears to be a one-diet-fits-all solution,” he added, “which I think can be unhealthy because people react to different diets in different ways.”
One diet fits all?
Harper questioned the motivation for the change in the food guide, saying it was more political than health-focused.
He said that improving the environment should not be the aim of the food guide, since Health Canada is a government organization focused on human health.
“I think we need to be sensible, dispassionate, apolitical and we have to focus truly on health,” he said. “When you’re compromising health for politics, that’s a problem.”
Hasan Hutchinson, director general of the Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion at Health Canada, the group that prepared the new guidelines, emphasized in a press statement that the policy does not bend to the lobbying of the dairy and meat industries.
Researchers at the University of Oxford, published a study in the journal Science, which found that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce an individual’s carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent.
Jackie Bastianon is a fourth-year journalism student and a food blogger who focuses on veganism. She said the environment was a big reason why she decided to become vegan.
She was inspired at an environmental protest on Parliament Hill, and after conducting her own personal research, she decided to gradually make the transition to a plant-based diet.
“If the environment was really going to be a part of who I am, I had to switch my lifestyle in order to feel this way.”
But, Harper said not everybody would find a vegan diet sustainable, and that the new food guide puts too much focus onto plant-based foods.
Differing diets
Harper said what the current food guide lacked was opportunities for alternative diets, such as the Ketogenic diet, otherwise known as the keto diet, which he recommends as an alternative to the standards of the food guide.
The keto diet calls for high-fat, low-carb foods. The recommended amount of carbohydrates consumed daily is around 20 grams or about 5-10 per cent of your diet.
Kelly Proulx, a registered dietician and certified diabetes educator, has seen the positive impact the keto diet has had on diabetics.
“If I have anyone who is struggling with obesity or Type 2 diabetes, I would recommend it. Even my Type 1 [diabetic] patients have benefitted,” Proulx said.
Larry Heng, a third-year journalism student at Ryerson University, was pollo-pescatarian, which means he did not eat red meat, for around eight months. He did this to help combat high blood pressure.
Heng said in the long run, this has helped him save money, by starting to purchase meats in bulk and also eating tofu, which he said was a cheap protein replacement.
“It allowed me to create a system, a routine and a lifestyle around it, where I just had a different diet than most people,” he said. “Mentally and physically, I felt a lot better. I went to the doctor’s a few times throughout the span, and each time, my blood pressure wouldn’t be so high.”
Heng has since begun eating red meat again since his blood pressure is lowered sufficiently, but less frequently than he did in the past.
Sustainable?
Harper and Proulx both agree that the key to any diet is ensuring it’s sustainable long-term.
“Sustainability, in my opinion, is completely subjective. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend something over the short-term if you’re not going to do it over the long-term.” – Ryan Sciacchitano, a naturopathic doctor and a certified sports nutritionist
“You ideally want to see a greater body of research before diving into something as drastically as you would be, shifting people’s lives.”
Michael Nazareth has been living a keto lifestyle for eight months and has only positive things to say about the diet.
“You kind of have to learn little tricks as you go through, and you kind of have to train your body,” Nazareth said. “Because my body was going through a change and wanting carbs, I was craving things I never craved before.”
Since the diet involves pushing your body into a state of ketosis—in which your body gets used to the keto diet and develops flu-like symptoms—some have questioned whether it is sustainable for people long-term.
Vania Hau, a personal trainer and manager for Free Form Fitness, said the success of a diet depends on the individual.
“If it fits within your lifestyle and you enjoy eating those foods, and you’re able to maintain that for the long-term, then it definitely can be sustainable.”
– Vania Hau, a personal trainer and manager for Free Form Fitness
Bastianon said people are often intimidated by taking on a vegan diet, believing it would not be sustainable for them. This she said, leads to a lot of stigma still existing, despite vegan diets becoming more commonplace.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions,” she said. “The whole basic ‘Oh, where do you get your protein from?’ is a common question I get asked.”
She said when she was changing her diet, she did it gradually at first—first cutting out beef, chicken, and then all meats, and only deciding to become vegan after further research.
She said now, more people have become curious about plant-based diets, and therefore it has become easier for others to explore veganism as well.
“There’s a really great community out there and there are a lot of resources out there. the Internet is a great place for research,” she said. “The stigma is going down, and Facebook is a great thing for finding a community.”
“I don’t normally recommend any diet in particular,” Hau said, “we really try to get people to follow more of a whole food diet per say. So as long as you are eating real food, lots of vegetables, protein, real fats, that kind of thing.”
