Canada's New Food Guide

https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/

by thtthings • 7 years ago

245 136 7 years ago

food-guide.canada.ca

sattoshi• 7 years ago

Canada.ca is a recipe website now and it's what HN always wanted: a recipe with no weird preface personal stories about grandmother's or something drinking tea.

elandrum• 7 years ago

scroll scroll scroll ah, finally the ingredients.

piceas• 7 years ago

I'm a fan. Other examples: https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes With a light sprinkling of meat propaganda: https://www.trueaussiebeefandlamb.com/recipes/

zxcvbn40382• 7 years ago

The stories are there because you have to be Don Draper to convince people to eat some of the recipes people put on the internet.

I’ve seen macaroni and cheese recipes that should have been called mayonnaise w/ pasta. One recipe for Spanish rice, wish I’d saved the url just to prove it existed, called for ketchup and soy sauce. I’m not sure if that was a prison recipe or if someone actually thought it was good and served it to their family.

IMO there is a huge need for curation and review on the recipe sites, not just the mindless screen scraping that’s been the norm for so long. And you might not know it from watching the food network but there are other genres of food besides Italian and “tacos”.

clydethefrog• 7 years ago

Some say it has to do with SEO purposes. There is a browser extension that directly shows the recipe itself called Recipe Filter.

hawkesnest• 7 years ago

The reason for the stories, I think, comes to a matter of US copyright law. For the most part, recipes themselves (ingredients and basic steps) are not protected under copyright. Any extraneous fluff added to the article is, though.

That, and the longer you sit on a site, and the more you have to scroll, the more likely you are to click on an advertisement and earn them some revenue.

benzor• 7 years ago

This is great. A no-nonsense, modern take on healthy nutrition. It's simple (no more food groups, portions, etc.), and actually healthy (e.g. not catering to the dairy industry with a daily glass of milk recommendation, pizza is not a vegetable, etc.).

Compare it to this: https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/archived_proje...

village-idiot6• 7 years ago

Oh, it’s still catering to some industries, they’re just far less blatant about it than in America.

ramy_d3• 7 years ago

Do you have anything to back that statement up?

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-food-...

benj1114• 7 years ago

Such as?

bb101• 7 years ago

In the Pork and apple skillet dinner[1], they recommend using canola oil, a recommendation one doesn't see all that often. With canola oil having been engineered in Canada, is it an oil of choice for Canadians?

[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-food-...

leethargo3• 7 years ago

I like it, too. Pretty much what I've been following for the last 1-2 years.

Would like more clarification on the saturated fats front, though (compare coconut oil, butter, palm oil, trans fats).

leethargo3• 7 years ago

Basically, many of their healthy fat oils are actually highly processed (which are not recommended), while the non-processed unsaturated fats (such as olive oil) are not suitable for (high-temperature) cooking.

spraak12• 7 years ago

Avoid oils in general. They're mostly devoid of nutrition (i.e. no fiber, lacking vitamins and minerals compared to the food source) and only contain fat https://youtu.be/LbtwwZP4Yfs

sharmi• 7 years ago

https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-eating-recommendatio...

It seems to stick to more traditional lines of avoid saturated fats (butter, ghee,coconut oil) and favour olive oil, canola oil etc.

And reduce fat in general

sridca4• 7 years ago

They both look the same (except for use of pyramid vs circle). What exactly are the major differences as you see?

folkrav• 7 years ago

The new Food Guide doesn't really discriminate by food groups apart from "eat fruits and veggies" and does away with daily portions per food type. What are the similarities you see?

sonnyblarney2• 7 years ago

"This is great. A no-nonsense, modern take on healthy nutrition. "

Even though it's technically 'no nonsense' - it actually is effectively 'nonsense' from a communications perspective.

It's almost meaningless, and un-actionable, and I don't think it will have any effect, on any group. I wonder if this should simply be a single page of points urging us to 'eat healthy' and that should be it.

Consider the main takeaway points:

'Enjoy your food' 'Eat protein' 'Eat lots of vegetables' 'Chose whole grain foods'

Seriously?

This is essentially very traditional approach to food, with noticeably less focus on carbs (we don't work on farms anymore), and also the absence milk, cheese and almost absence of meat which I believe is likely a shade ideological as opposed to nutritional.

It surely is good advice, but it's not specific at all, and essentially boils down to 'eat healthy, don't each junk food'.

Seriously consider this:

https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-eating-recommendatio...

It's the page on 'how to enjoy your food'.

"tasting the flavours" "being open to trying new foods" "developing a healthy attitude about food"

Seriously - a page devoted to instructing us to 'taste the flavours' of food.

Here the section on your 'eating environment':

Influences on eating and drinking. These can include:

distractions where you eat who you eat with what you are doing while you are eating

Eating environments can affect:

what you eat and drink the amount you eat and drink ow much you enjoy eating

It's really an eerie thing to read.

I should add: the recipes look really good however.

cknoxrun3• 7 years ago

It’s important to note that this is taught in schools starting from as early as grade 1. I do believe that teaching children about the joys of eating food and sharing meals could have a positive impact. Consider France, arguably one of the healthiest nations when it comes to food, where this is culturally ingrained from an early age.

sridca4• 7 years ago

almost absence of meat which I believe is likely a shade ideological as opposed to nutritional.

Finally someone here notice it. Have you also noticed how Canada's New Food Guide looks eerily similar to the much-criticized EAT-Lancet recommendation (reportedly fueled by Vegan propaganda): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/20190...

maxlybbert4• 7 years ago

Compare it to this: ...

The USDA updates the guidelines every so often. They no longer use a pyramid, and they’ve silently backed away from recommending so many carbs. Compare Canada’s guide to https://www.choosemyplate.gov/ .

131012• 7 years ago

Even if I agree with the guide, one has to remember it is election year in Canada, and Canada is one of the largest grower of pulses and legumes. Nothing is devoid of political ramifications.

dwild• 7 years ago

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-...

https://www.choosemyplate.gov/

Both use a pretty similar graphic and both dedicate 50% of the plate for fruit and vegetable.

I'm Canadian and the milk industry seems like a much bigger political issues (and it was already one after the USMCA).

igrekel3• 7 years ago

While it is not completely impossible, if political ramifications were the prime drivers, meat, dairy and grain would have a lot more space and would have suffered when comparing to previous version of the guide.

The guide as likely little effect outside the country, its effect is more on small institutional kitchens (daycares, schools, clinics etc.), its content is unlikely to affect international sales. Its political effect is more likely to be felt internally, through perception of people in the affected industries rather than the effect the guide may have on their sales.

Some of the not so favoured are powerful industries what occupy a lot of land across several provinces (wheat), have suffered recently and are getting more politically active (dairy) or are in areas where the party currently in power needs to keep its support for the next election (meat).

PalantirSlayer• 7 years ago

If governements tells you what to eat please be skeptical. They have got it wrong in past and they might be wrong today. The best diet advice always comes from grandma.

eumenides1• 7 years ago

Just because they tried and got it wrong doesn't mean we should be skeptical. We should be comparing what is known about food science to what is presented. Honestly, this food guide has been closest to what people currently consider healthy than any other previous guide.

The whole advice from grandma is nonsense. You probably have a wealthy background, but my grandma was poor, uneducated, and cooked meals based on what was affordable. That isn't advice, that's an economic condition.

igrekel3• 7 years ago

For some perspective, the original guide was produced to help the Canadian population to stay healthy during war induced restrictions.

The later, and current version of the guide influence institutional kitchens that do not have dedicated nutritionists such as daycares, some schools, clinics, etc.

If I followed by grandma's preferences we'd be eating canned food, salted meat, mincemeat pie, a lot of mayonnaise and cookies (exaggerating of course).

benj1114• 7 years ago

I hope that plate at the top of the front page isn't a suggested meal size!

Has anyone got some background on this, is it part of a larger policy? Is it going to be added to, or is this it now?

ginko• 7 years ago

Why? Too much? Too little?

benj1114• 7 years ago

The egg seems to be the most reliable scale indicator? Assuming that's a normal size egg, that is a very large plate of food.

I know the intent is to indicate relative proportions of food, but you question suggests more work needs to be done on portion control also.

moltar2• 7 years ago

Jesus, who invented that???

Mac and cheese with a veggie twist

* 375 mL (1 ½ cups) whole grain macaroni or fusilli * 10 mL (2 tsp) soft non-hydrogenated margarine

humanrebar2• 7 years ago

Yeah. That recipe looks pretty rough. I hate it when people try to transform unhealthy dishes into healthy "treats".

Just serve pasta with olive oil, some sort of acid (lemon juice, rotating cast of vinegars, tomatoes), and maybe a little grated sharp cheese if you really need that.

Honestly, I'd rather just eat barley, farro, or bulgur in a bowl than try to force whole grains into crumbly pasta. But I guess that's a matter of taste.

The big problem with this dish is the relative lack of umami. Sauteed mushrooms (shitake, portabella) really help here if you don't want to use meat. Or nutritional yeast really does the trick here. Depending on your palette, various fish sauces also help, though most Canadians probably aren't adding fermented fish products on everything.

cknoxrun3• 7 years ago

I would imagine several of the recipes are directed at families with young children?

Marsymars• 7 years ago

Depending on your palette, various fish sauces also help, though most Canadians probably aren't adding fermented fish products on everything.

Hah, am (a very white) Canadian, and fish sauces are the only non-Vegetarian thing I'm still stocking in my house.

moltar2• 7 years ago

I was even more concerned about the margarine. I think it’s pretty established by now that cholesterol and saturated fat is a myth. Might as well eat butter then.

ricardobeat• 7 years ago

I reckon this is influenced by the pioneering Brazilian food guide [1] released in 2014, which was created in partnership with the Universiy of Montreal[2].

[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/2/20/8076961/brazil-food-guide

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/brazils-revolutio...

ponderatul• 7 years ago

It's not the same anti-evolutionary guude promoted by the EAT foundation is it?

sridca4• 7 years ago

Looks like it, and for which there is a good rebuttal: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/20190...

Vinnl4• 7 years ago

It's interesting how we can all check out Canada's food guide, but we cannot do the same with e.g. the Dutch food guide, or the Italian one, or the Russian one, unless you speak those languages.

In any case, this one appears pretty similar to the Dutch one, so I guess that that's a good sign. The Dutch one recommends specific portions (250g of vegetables for an adult, for example), but I think in similar ratios as shown on that example plate, and similar products.

kogepathic• 7 years ago

It's interesting how we can all check out Canada's food guide, but we cannot do the same with e.g. the Dutch food guide, or the Italian one, or the Russian one, unless you speak those languages.

It's the same case for Canada's food guide? They're not making it available in other languages except English and French.

Vinnl4• 7 years ago

Of course; it wasn't a criticism, but an observation. Just because many of us here speak English, even though we're not from Canada, we can know what is recommended in Canada, and how that compares with our own. I wouldn't expect them to make it available in other languages :)

tom_mellior3• 7 years ago

Literally typing "dutch food guide" into DuckDuckGo got me to this summary in English: http://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-based-dietary-gu...

Then following some broken links to https://www.voedingscentrum.nl, here is The Netherlands Nutrition Centre's English home page: https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/english.aspx where following some more broken links you get to their "Wheel of Five", "the practical information tool used by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre to give examples of healthy dietary patterns": https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/Assets/Uploads/voedingscentru...

(I don't speak Dutch, and I feel silly pointing out that national dietary guidelines make most sense in national languages, and that English happens to be a national language of Canada.)

Vinnl4• 7 years ago

Wow interesting, it didn't even occur to me that the Voedingscentrum would have made available English-language content. To be clear, I wouldn't expect the Canadian food guide to be made available in Dutch either.

It's just that I often compare Dutch guidelines with foreign (usually American) ones, and they often diverge. For example, in the Netherlands it's common not to use anaesthesia when giving birth, where most other countries AFAIK do.

vkaku• 7 years ago

Great Job, Canada. They've shot down many of the lobbying companies when publishing this.

It's not perfect, but it's a good start.

sridca4• 7 years ago

Great Job, Canada. They've shot down many of the lobbying companies when publishing this.

They only shot down diary, meat and juice industry[1], while conveniently ignoring mentioning of lobbying from others (plant-based foods).

Canada actually produces over 50% of the world's supply of lentils and they also grow a large amounts of various grains, legumes that they may be looking to push and make a profit for[2].

The whole food guide is extremely biased and hardly anyone here in HN seems to get it, lol.

[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-new-food-guid...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3uewoEocYY

hema_n• 7 years ago

This is simply perfect.. Everyone can follow this by making small changes in their eating habits towards a healthy lifestyle.

novaRom• 7 years ago

My food guide is to learn from examples: How average people of my age and older look like in different parts of the world? Are they healthy? What do they eat? What their habits? etc.

ddeokbokki• 7 years ago

A people's traditional diet does not necessarily correlate to their longevity, there are many other factors one needs to take into account (way of life, access to healthcare, access to food, etc)

kentosi• 7 years ago

From what I read, and someone please correct me on this, they put a bunch of scientists in a room to do their work without any influences from industry and lobby groups.

I love this. Great job Canada!

kszxgz• 7 years ago

For comparison: Harvard Healthy Eating Plate https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-...

At least among the Harvard faculty, there appears to be a consensus that healthy fats are important, which the Canadian guide doesn't seem to stress that much.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you...

===

Comments on the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/intervie...):

INTERVIEWER: Some nutritionists have criticized your pyramid as "floating on a lake of olive oil."

WILLETT: The formal studies that had compared a more moderate fat intake as we've suggested, with low-fat diets, have actually consistently shown that people did as well or better controlling their weight on a moderate-fat diet compared to a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet.

INTERVIEWER: Even good fats are more fattening than good carbs. So they think you're contributing to the obesity epidemic, or there's a risk of that. A tablespoon of olive oil is 14 grams of fat.

WILLETT: There are all kinds of beliefs about the amount of fat in a diet, tremendously strong opinions. What we really need is sound data, and the studies that have been done show that people actually end up controlling their weight at least as well, and usually better, on moderate-fat diets compared to low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets.

INTERVIEWER: Is it okay to get more than 30 percent of your calories from fat?

WILLETT: The evidence is quite clear that it's perfectly fine to get more than 30 percent of your calories from fat, and probably, in fact, it's even better to be getting more than 30 percent of calories from fat, if it's the healthy form of fat. ...

===

EDIT: formatting

EForEndeavour2• 7 years ago

I prefer the visualization on the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate website: it conveys more information in a smaller space than the plate graphic you first see on Canada's Food Guide.

That said, the Canada Food Guide page certainly has fat covered. It doesn't mention it straight from the landing page, but if you explore the guide, you find it pretty quick.

The first link in the sidebar of the Canada Food Guide, "Food Choices," takes you to

https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-food-choices/

which states in the second line of text "Choose foods with healthy fats instead of saturated fat." That text is (non-obviously) a link to

https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-eating-recommendatio...

which provides about the same amount of detail about healthy versus saturated fats. It also mentions that "the type of fat you eat over time is more important for health than the total amount of fat you eat."

Finally, the "Further Reading" section links to

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/nutrients/fa...

which goes into much more detail, and even provides links intended for industry and health professionals for anyone looking for yet more information.

While the Canadian guide's layout is different from the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate, I'd say the Canadian guide has fat covered pretty well!

3pt14159• 7 years ago

True, and I don't hate this guide from my government, but the sample recipes are eye-rolling.

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-food-...

Like, guys. Why are we adding brown sugar and why are we stressing skim milk? What are we adding dried cranberries, which lack fibre?

I constantly feel like I need to write a website on how to be healthy. I'm a fit software dev with 11% body fat. I've held it for almost 5 years now, but before that I was just like everyone else. It's really simple.

1. Maximize fibre (i.e., fresh veggies, non-canned chickpeas). 2. Eliminate refined sugar / date / figs / dried fruit as much as humanly possible. 3. Maximize flavour (i.e., fat, spices, added berries) 4. Maximize protein 5. Minimize average effort 6. Minimum 15 minutes of heart pumping exercise per day. Ideally 1 hour or more.

This is easier than you expect. I make a chickpea curry or (mostly) vegetarian chilli in a huge dutch oven once a week. That's 10 meals right there. I bike to get around. Body weight exercise once a week, and that's basically it.

This whole fat vs carbs thing is a total red herring. Some carbs are great for you (resistant starch, both soluble and insoluble fibre) some are fine (lactose, glucose) some are shitty (fructose, sucrose). Some fats are great for you (omega balanced polys) some are fine (mono) some are shitty (trans), but we lump it all into fats vs carbs and no wonder the public is confused.

maxlybbert4• 7 years ago

There are even more guides at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nutrition_guides .

NumberWangMan• 7 years ago

Olive oil is not a healthy fat (as much as I'd love it to be) -- it's got a substantial amount of saturated fat, and the interviewer is correct -- it's very easy to get a lot of empty calories with oil.

Aside from that, weight is not the only issue. A high fat diet (even a vegan one) is not good for your cardiovascular system.

There's a widely quoted study by high-fat diet proponents comparing two groups eating a high-fat Mediterranean diet (one with olive oil, one with nuts) to a "low fat" control group: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303?query=re...

This study can't really be used to advocate a high fat diet, though, because all the diets (even the control group) were actually high fat. Looking at page 28 of the appendix (https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303/suppl_f...) shows that the fat intake of all three groups was really very similar -- about 41% calories from fat for the olive oil and nut groups, but only...37% fat from the control group. 37% calories from fat is not "low fat".

On the other hand, a true low fat diet, with fewer than 10% of calories from fat, has been shown to actually reverse the progression of heart disease: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7500065 (this was one of the first studies to demonstrate this, but they've repeated this with larger groups and gotten the same results)

deegles• 7 years ago

I read somewhere that a mix of 50% olive oil and 50% butter very closely approximates the lipid profile of human fat. If saturated fat is bad for you, why does the body choose to store "bad" fats? Wouldn't evolution have weeded out saturated fat storage since it's "bad" for your cardiovascular system?

SECProto2• 7 years ago

Where's the proof of your assertion that olive oil is not a healthy fat due to the saturated fat content? I'm under the impression saturated fat is a bogeyman similar to cholesterol.

olau• 7 years ago

"On the other hand, a true low fat diet, with fewer than 10% of calories from fat, has been shown to actually reverse the progression of heart disease"

I know almost nothing about health studies, but I read the abstract you link to and there's no mention of randomized control group or other mechanism to prevent bias.

Tried a quick search and came up with this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat_and_cardiovascul...

loco5niner2• 7 years ago

This is the conclusion from your first link.

It seems to disagree with your statements.

"In conclusion, in this primary prevention trial, we observed that an energy-unrestricted Mediterranean diet, supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts, resulted in a substantial reduction in the risk of major cardiovascular events among high-risk persons. The results support the benefits of the Mediterranean diet for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease."

Another random snippet from same link: "Thus, extra-virgin olive oil and nuts were probably responsible for most of the observed benefits of the Mediterranean diets."

a3n• 7 years ago

What we really need is sound data, and the studies that have been done show that people actually end up controlling their weight at least as well, and usually better, on moderate-fat diets compared to low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets.

In my experience, and what I've read, relatively higher fat food satiates better. If you're relatively less hungry, you have a better chance to resist overeating and boredom eating.

nickelcitymario• 7 years ago

New guide, same as the old guide, minus dairy as its own category, and carbs are de-emphasized.

This seems pretty non-controversial.

The old food pyramid suggested having as many carbs as you could handle, and made it seem like milk and meat were absolutely vital.

The new take just lumps those into protein and suggests proteins as a whole should be about 25% of your diet.

While no guide could possibly please everyone (there's a diet trend for every possible food combo out there), this seems like a reasonable baseline to me.

As for the recipes they list... omg no.

14• 7 years ago

I haven't looked over this food guide and probably will not put too much thought into it as a Canadian. Everyone knows that last food guide was completely out of touch with reality and was actually influenced by some of the big food companies. So now they want to try again and they didn't have it right for the last few decades why should I listen now? If they want to get me to listen now they need to highlight the old food guide and the changes they made and why. I notice they now recommend water as the drink of choice when the last one companies like Minute Maid fought to have a glass of juice placed on it. So my generation was sold out on the food guide. My trust now is strained. I will take this one with caution as well and continue to question if there is some alternative motive for the foods recommended.

sixothree• 7 years ago

What are the little balls to the left of the egg?

Vinnl4• 7 years ago

I think pine nuts, perhaps some other type of nuts or maybe even lentils?

lavignegagnon• 7 years ago

I can't believe they still promote horrible industrial oils high in omega-6 as healthy fats:

  Unsaturated fats that are good for your health: peanut, soybean, safflower, sunflower.

https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/tips-for-healthy-eating/comm...

robbrit• 7 years ago

It's great that they highlight the effects of targeted advertising on eating behaviour: https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-eating-recommendatio...

Definitely good to see a government organization being aware of how the modern world works.

Canada's New Food Guide

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