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Canada's New Food Guide

food-guide.canada.ca

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Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Cho…

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 fo…

It's almost like the food guide needs to make recommendations based on the categories you outline, and have those added to the nutrition labels. Eg replace 'fat' as a category with 'omega balanced polys' and trans fat. Gosh, then even color code the nutrition label so show that the bad nutrition elements are in red.

Ie. make it easy for the consumer to pick up to food items in the grocery store and make the healthy decision between the two. As of now, I don't really think that's possible unless you study things like yourself.

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#92
post #16

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

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…

> 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.

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It’s important to note that this is taught in schools starting from as early as grade 1. My kids come home with hungry with half-eaten lunches complaining how they didn’t have enough time to eat. They get rushed to finish within 10-15 minutes and go outside. This is a universal complaint among parents. We’re culturally ingraining eating as something you rush through on the way to something else.

Isn't that a good thing? Eating for the sake of enjoying eating seems more like a problem than a solution here, eating should be more something you do because you need to rather than something you do for fun.

If you want something beneficial, teach people to enjoy cooking rather than eating.

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#94
post #59
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point – oils are (un)suitable for cooking primarily based on the risk of oxidation via heat. That study is only about the polyphenol content of olive oil (which, according to the study, do not get degraded as much as we might have thought), but it says nothing about the oxidation of poly-unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats are at a much higher risk of oxidation, which is why cooking with canola oil…

Olive oil can easily sustain 160C for hour long period of time. You can use it for saute and pan frying. What you are refering too is deep frying with temperatures above 190C. That is what the consensus is, also my personal experience: it smokes really fast and tastes rancid.

I've had some smoking and a bit of rancidity using olive oil to do roast potatoes at 450F (230C) - 400F and lower usually works no issues.

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#95
post #84
post #5

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...

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.

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).

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#96
post #67

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/front…

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 hig…

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?

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#97
post #84
post #5

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...

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.

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).

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#98

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.

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.

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#99
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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-...

I'd say canola is the default oil if you need fat that has little to no flavour itself in a recipe.

Re: Canada's New Food Guide

#100
post #67

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/front…

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 hig…

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.
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