The Canada Food Guide, and other nonsense
The Canada Food Guide (CFG) is being revised. This is a good thing. Corporations are being allowed to sit on the panel. This is a bad thing.
The Canada Food Guide (like the FDA's Food Pyramid) is taught in schools as 'the way to eat'. My MIL uses it like a bible. If the CFG says it, it's true, by God! And if it doesn't say it, it's not important! Never mind that it lists potatoes as vegetables on par with carrots, squash, peas, etc. So she thinks (and teaches!) that if you eat a steak and a huge serving of potatoes with a glass of milk and a piece of bread, you're getting a good balanced dinner! Granted, she'd cook some carrots too. Well, overcook some carrots, but that's another story. :)
The CFG suggests 5-12 servings of grain products per day. 5-12! It says to 'choose whole grain products more often'. More often than what? More often than not? So that means I can eat Wonderbread and white pasta for 5 of 12 servings per day? It shows white rice as an option. Not particularly healthful, that. It also shows white bread, bagels and crackers.
The Milk Products section really irritates me. It says 2-3 servings for children aged 4-9, 3-4 servings for youth 10-16 and pregnant and breastfeeding women, and 2-4 servings for all other adults. Okay. There are no 'alternatives' to milk products listed. Why is milk such a HUGE part of the CFG? Perhaps because the President of the BC Dairy Foundation is on the panel to decide how to revise it? Gee? Could he have a vested interest in how much dairy we eat? There are plenty of other ways to get Calcium and Vitamin D, but none of those are listed anywhere. The meat section is also a problem, but not as bad. At least they show tofu and peanut butter there. Canned beans too. What's wrong with fresh? Also it's another one of these "choose lean... more often/i>" Again. More often than what? More often than you are now? More often than not? It's stupid and useless.
Portion size isn't very well defined. What is "one bagel"? I've seen some bagels the size of a small loaf of bread, and I've seen some smaller than the average Tim Hortons doughnut. Most are larger. They say that two servings of pasta is 'one cup', but then show a whole plate full of it.
Sodium intake isn't listed anywhere, though apparently this may be addressed in the new guide. I fully expect it to say, "Eat foods with no added salt more often". Because 'more often' is so useful. Most people don't have a clue how much sodium they're eating and think that if they don't add salt to their food then they're on a low sodium diet. Seriously. I just explained to my Mom yesterday that the amount of sodium in a can of tomato soup is HUGE, and that sodium is added to canned vegetables (that she's faithfully eating to get her 5-10 servings).
Oh yes, that's another problem. The current guide suggests 5-10 servings of vegetables and fruits per day, but the new one is going to say 4-8. They LOWERED IT! I'm appalled. People need to be eating more produce, not less! IMNSHO, vegetables and fruit should comprise fully half of what a person eats.
The old guide is very ethnocentric and limited. It doesn't offer any suggestion of ethnic foods. It's ridiculous. It's no wonder that people ask, incredulously, "What do you eat?!" when I say I can't eat gluten or dairy, and prefer not to eat a lot of meat. That's all they know. Our Canadian diet is so boring. It's rare for me to meet someone who knows what sorghum is. And when I say that I can make bread with lots of different grains, they say, "Like rye?" I say, "No, gluten is in wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt". One person actually said, "Well, there are no other grains!" and was thoroughly amazed when I named a bunch of others. Now, I know the Food Guide isn't meant to define all the foods there are out there, but how about making an effort to show some 'unusual' foods like oh.. nuts? Seeds. Berries. Bean sprouts. Chickpeas (mmmm, chickpeas!).
Trans fats and the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats aren't addressed in the new version. That's insane. No where does it suggest eating organic foods or foods that aren't genetically modified. Because Monsanto wouldn't like that, I'm sure!
But if the CFG doesn't say it, it doesn't matter, right? Because a govenment agency *always* has our best interests at heart.
The Canada Food Guide (like the FDA's Food Pyramid) is taught in schools as 'the way to eat'. My MIL uses it like a bible. If the CFG says it, it's true, by God! And if it doesn't say it, it's not important! Never mind that it lists potatoes as vegetables on par with carrots, squash, peas, etc. So she thinks (and teaches!) that if you eat a steak and a huge serving of potatoes with a glass of milk and a piece of bread, you're getting a good balanced dinner! Granted, she'd cook some carrots too. Well, overcook some carrots, but that's another story. :)
The CFG suggests 5-12 servings of grain products per day. 5-12! It says to 'choose whole grain products more often'. More often than what? More often than not? So that means I can eat Wonderbread and white pasta for 5 of 12 servings per day? It shows white rice as an option. Not particularly healthful, that. It also shows white bread, bagels and crackers.
The Milk Products section really irritates me. It says 2-3 servings for children aged 4-9, 3-4 servings for youth 10-16 and pregnant and breastfeeding women, and 2-4 servings for all other adults. Okay. There are no 'alternatives' to milk products listed. Why is milk such a HUGE part of the CFG? Perhaps because the President of the BC Dairy Foundation is on the panel to decide how to revise it? Gee? Could he have a vested interest in how much dairy we eat? There are plenty of other ways to get Calcium and Vitamin D, but none of those are listed anywhere. The meat section is also a problem, but not as bad. At least they show tofu and peanut butter there. Canned beans too. What's wrong with fresh? Also it's another one of these "choose lean... more often/i>" Again. More often than what? More often than you are now? More often than not? It's stupid and useless.
Portion size isn't very well defined. What is "one bagel"? I've seen some bagels the size of a small loaf of bread, and I've seen some smaller than the average Tim Hortons doughnut. Most are larger. They say that two servings of pasta is 'one cup', but then show a whole plate full of it.
Sodium intake isn't listed anywhere, though apparently this may be addressed in the new guide. I fully expect it to say, "Eat foods with no added salt more often". Because 'more often' is so useful. Most people don't have a clue how much sodium they're eating and think that if they don't add salt to their food then they're on a low sodium diet. Seriously. I just explained to my Mom yesterday that the amount of sodium in a can of tomato soup is HUGE, and that sodium is added to canned vegetables (that she's faithfully eating to get her 5-10 servings).
Oh yes, that's another problem. The current guide suggests 5-10 servings of vegetables and fruits per day, but the new one is going to say 4-8. They LOWERED IT! I'm appalled. People need to be eating more produce, not less! IMNSHO, vegetables and fruit should comprise fully half of what a person eats.
The old guide is very ethnocentric and limited. It doesn't offer any suggestion of ethnic foods. It's ridiculous. It's no wonder that people ask, incredulously, "What do you eat?!" when I say I can't eat gluten or dairy, and prefer not to eat a lot of meat. That's all they know. Our Canadian diet is so boring. It's rare for me to meet someone who knows what sorghum is. And when I say that I can make bread with lots of different grains, they say, "Like rye?" I say, "No, gluten is in wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt". One person actually said, "Well, there are no other grains!" and was thoroughly amazed when I named a bunch of others. Now, I know the Food Guide isn't meant to define all the foods there are out there, but how about making an effort to show some 'unusual' foods like oh.. nuts? Seeds. Berries. Bean sprouts. Chickpeas (mmmm, chickpeas!).
Trans fats and the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats aren't addressed in the new version. That's insane. No where does it suggest eating organic foods or foods that aren't genetically modified. Because Monsanto wouldn't like that, I'm sure!
But if the CFG doesn't say it, it doesn't matter, right? Because a govenment agency *always* has our best interests at heart.