New Canadian Food Guide 2007
Feb 21, 2007 18:47:06 GMT -5
Post by Durgan on Feb 21, 2007 18:47:06 GMT -5
Gospel of good eating
xrl.us/uz6b Article
xrl.us/uz7d Food Guide Proper
Canada's Food Guide 2007: Feb 06, 2007 06:39 AM
Megan Ogilvie
Health Reporter
Your mother always told you to eat your veggies. And now the federal government is telling you, too.
Health Canada rolled out its new food guide yesterday — the first revision of the iconic handbook on healthy eating in 15 years — with fruits and vegetables taking the place of grains at the outer swath of the signature rainbow.
Officials at Health Canada say the long-awaited guide is based on the best available nutritional science and will help Canadians pick the right types and amounts of foods to eat each day to improve their health and well-being.
Health Minister Tony Clement said the new food guide is an important tool that’s become popular with Canadians and is now the second most downloaded government document.
He recently started to incorporate the new food guide recommendations into his own diet by eating more vegetables, beans and fish — even choosing to snack on an apple during last weekend’s Super Bowl game.
“These are small changes, but they can cumulatively make a big difference in your health,” he said.
For the first time, the food guide is gender- and age-specific for Canadians older than two. That means dietary advice is tailored to three different age groups of children, as well as teen and adult men and women. The six-page guide also emphasizes the importance of eating whole grain foods and including a small amount of healthy unsaturated fats in a daily diet.
Experts say the new guide provides more details on how to choose different foods within the four food groups; it tells people, for example, to choose at least one dark green vegetable, such as broccoli or spinach, and one orange vegetable, such as carrots or sweet potatoes, every day.
The guide also gives more information on portion sizes, with one whole page devoted to illustrating serving sizes on foods ranging from leafy vegetables to couscous to cooked legumes.
Zannat Reza, a Toronto-based registered dietitian and nutrition consultant, said the new guide does a better job at personalizing healthy eating by getting rid of the recommended serving ranges.
“The 1992 version suggested Canadians eat one or two eggs, but this time they settled on two eggs as a serving (of meat and alternatives),” she said. “There used to be a lot of ambiguity. Now it’s a lot more clear as to what a serving size is.”
Toronto Public Health has immediate plans to revise their nutrition resources to reflect the new guide. Many of their staff use the food guide on a daily basis and Toronto area schools, daycare centres and community groups rely on Toronto Public Health for healthy eating information based on the food guide.
“It’s like the nutrition bible in Canada,” said Judi Wilkie, the healthy living manager at Toronto Public Health. “It’s based on science, based on evidence and it’s really one of our main tools.”
Wilkie helped Toronto Public Health adapt its resources after the last food guide was released in 1992. She said it took more than a year for all the community stakeholders to start using the guide effectively.
This time around, Wilkie said the process should be much more efficient; she expects that all school teachers who use the food guide in the classrooms will be briefed on the new version by early next fall.
Toronto Public Health wanted the new food guide to reflect Canada’s diverse population and officials recommended Health Canada illustrate the guide with a wide variety of cultural foods.
Mary-Jo Makarchuk, a nutritionist at Toronto Public Health, sat on Health Canada’s Advisory Committee on Dietary Reference Intakes, one of two committees that advised on the new guide.
She said the updated version is a positive step forward for the city’s different ethno-cultural communities with couscous, flatbreads and tofu making the front cover.
Health Minister Tony Clement said the 2007 food guide will soon be translated into more than six dozen languages and be available to download on Health Canada’s website.
But according to Wilkie, simply translating the food guide isn’t enough. Instead, she said the food guide should be adapted for different cultural groups.
“You can’t represent every food, every eating pattern on one pictorial representation.”
During the revision process, Health Canada consulted with more than 7,000 Canadians across the country, including family physicians, dietitians and public health experts. Even though politics plagued the revision, with many critics vocally opposing the revision process, it seemed many of the stakeholders were happy with the final product.
After its release yesterday, the Canadian Public Health Association, the Dietitians of Canada and a number of Canadian health charities, including the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, came out in support of the new guide.
The food guide is the primary nutrition educational tool for dietitians to use with consumers, said Lynn Roblin, an Oakville-based registered dietitian and nutrition consultant who is also a spokesperson for the Dietitians of Canada.
“We greatly anticipate that it (the 2007 version) will help dietitians work with their clients to better help them eat well.”
The Canadian Medical Association, which represents more than 60,000 of the country’s doctors, was more cautious in its comments. Dr. Colin McMillan, the association’s president, said while the food guide has been a valuable resource to Canadians for more than 60 years, it is only one of many important tools to help Canadians fight the growing obesity epidemic.
He said the Canadian Medical Association wants the federal government to commit to revising the food guide every three to five years to keep up with the most recent research in nutrition science.
____________________________________________________
Durgan
xrl.us/uz6b Article
xrl.us/uz7d Food Guide Proper
Canada's Food Guide 2007: Feb 06, 2007 06:39 AM
Megan Ogilvie
Health Reporter
Your mother always told you to eat your veggies. And now the federal government is telling you, too.
Health Canada rolled out its new food guide yesterday — the first revision of the iconic handbook on healthy eating in 15 years — with fruits and vegetables taking the place of grains at the outer swath of the signature rainbow.
Officials at Health Canada say the long-awaited guide is based on the best available nutritional science and will help Canadians pick the right types and amounts of foods to eat each day to improve their health and well-being.
Health Minister Tony Clement said the new food guide is an important tool that’s become popular with Canadians and is now the second most downloaded government document.
He recently started to incorporate the new food guide recommendations into his own diet by eating more vegetables, beans and fish — even choosing to snack on an apple during last weekend’s Super Bowl game.
“These are small changes, but they can cumulatively make a big difference in your health,” he said.
For the first time, the food guide is gender- and age-specific for Canadians older than two. That means dietary advice is tailored to three different age groups of children, as well as teen and adult men and women. The six-page guide also emphasizes the importance of eating whole grain foods and including a small amount of healthy unsaturated fats in a daily diet.
Experts say the new guide provides more details on how to choose different foods within the four food groups; it tells people, for example, to choose at least one dark green vegetable, such as broccoli or spinach, and one orange vegetable, such as carrots or sweet potatoes, every day.
The guide also gives more information on portion sizes, with one whole page devoted to illustrating serving sizes on foods ranging from leafy vegetables to couscous to cooked legumes.
Zannat Reza, a Toronto-based registered dietitian and nutrition consultant, said the new guide does a better job at personalizing healthy eating by getting rid of the recommended serving ranges.
“The 1992 version suggested Canadians eat one or two eggs, but this time they settled on two eggs as a serving (of meat and alternatives),” she said. “There used to be a lot of ambiguity. Now it’s a lot more clear as to what a serving size is.”
Toronto Public Health has immediate plans to revise their nutrition resources to reflect the new guide. Many of their staff use the food guide on a daily basis and Toronto area schools, daycare centres and community groups rely on Toronto Public Health for healthy eating information based on the food guide.
“It’s like the nutrition bible in Canada,” said Judi Wilkie, the healthy living manager at Toronto Public Health. “It’s based on science, based on evidence and it’s really one of our main tools.”
Wilkie helped Toronto Public Health adapt its resources after the last food guide was released in 1992. She said it took more than a year for all the community stakeholders to start using the guide effectively.
This time around, Wilkie said the process should be much more efficient; she expects that all school teachers who use the food guide in the classrooms will be briefed on the new version by early next fall.
Toronto Public Health wanted the new food guide to reflect Canada’s diverse population and officials recommended Health Canada illustrate the guide with a wide variety of cultural foods.
Mary-Jo Makarchuk, a nutritionist at Toronto Public Health, sat on Health Canada’s Advisory Committee on Dietary Reference Intakes, one of two committees that advised on the new guide.
She said the updated version is a positive step forward for the city’s different ethno-cultural communities with couscous, flatbreads and tofu making the front cover.
Health Minister Tony Clement said the 2007 food guide will soon be translated into more than six dozen languages and be available to download on Health Canada’s website.
But according to Wilkie, simply translating the food guide isn’t enough. Instead, she said the food guide should be adapted for different cultural groups.
“You can’t represent every food, every eating pattern on one pictorial representation.”
During the revision process, Health Canada consulted with more than 7,000 Canadians across the country, including family physicians, dietitians and public health experts. Even though politics plagued the revision, with many critics vocally opposing the revision process, it seemed many of the stakeholders were happy with the final product.
After its release yesterday, the Canadian Public Health Association, the Dietitians of Canada and a number of Canadian health charities, including the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, came out in support of the new guide.
The food guide is the primary nutrition educational tool for dietitians to use with consumers, said Lynn Roblin, an Oakville-based registered dietitian and nutrition consultant who is also a spokesperson for the Dietitians of Canada.
“We greatly anticipate that it (the 2007 version) will help dietitians work with their clients to better help them eat well.”
The Canadian Medical Association, which represents more than 60,000 of the country’s doctors, was more cautious in its comments. Dr. Colin McMillan, the association’s president, said while the food guide has been a valuable resource to Canadians for more than 60 years, it is only one of many important tools to help Canadians fight the growing obesity epidemic.
He said the Canadian Medical Association wants the federal government to commit to revising the food guide every three to five years to keep up with the most recent research in nutrition science.
____________________________________________________
Durgan