Canada's New Food Guide

This is great. A no-nonsense, modern take on healthy nutrition. It&#x27;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.).<p>Compare it to this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnpp.usda.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;archived_projects&#x2F;FGPPamphlet.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnpp.usda.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;archived_proje...</a>

For comparison: Harvard Healthy Eating Plate <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hsph.harvard.edu&#x2F;nutritionsource&#x2F;healthy-eating-plate&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hsph.harvard.edu&#x2F;nutritionsource&#x2F;healthy-eating-...</a><p>At least among the Harvard faculty, there appears to be a consensus that healthy fats are important, which the Canadian guide doesn&#x27;t seem to stress that much.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hsph.harvard.edu&#x2F;nutritionsource&#x2F;what-should-you-eat&#x2F;fats-and-cholesterol&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hsph.harvard.edu&#x2F;nutritionsource&#x2F;what-should-you...</a><p>===<p>Comments on the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pbs.org&#x2F;wgbh&#x2F;pages&#x2F;frontline&#x2F;shows&#x2F;diet&#x2F;interviews&#x2F;willett.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pbs.org&#x2F;wgbh&#x2F;pages&#x2F;frontline&#x2F;shows&#x2F;diet&#x2F;intervie...</a>):<p>INTERVIEWER: Some nutritionists have criticized your pyramid as &quot;floating on a lake of olive oil.&quot;<p>WILLETT: The formal studies that had compared a more moderate fat intake as we&#x27;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.<p>INTERVIEWER: Even good fats are more fattening than good carbs. So they think you&#x27;re contributing to the obesity epidemic, or there&#x27;s a risk of that. A tablespoon of olive oil is 14 grams of fat.<p>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.<p>INTERVIEWER: Is it okay to get more than 30 percent of your calories from fat?<p>WILLETT: The evidence is quite clear that it&#x27;s perfectly fine to get more than 30 percent of your calories from fat, and probably, in fact, it&#x27;s even better to be getting more than 30 percent of calories from fat, if it&#x27;s the healthy form of fat. ...<p>===<p>EDIT: formatting

Canada.ca is a recipe website now and it&#x27;s what HN always wanted: a recipe with no weird preface personal stories about grandmother&#x27;s or something drinking tea.

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].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;2&#x2F;20&#x2F;8076961&#x2F;brazil-food-guide" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;2&#x2F;20&#x2F;8076961&#x2F;brazil-food-guide</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbc.ca&#x2F;natureofthings&#x2F;features&#x2F;brazils-revolutionary-new-food-guide-focuses-on-how-food-is-made" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbc.ca&#x2F;natureofthings&#x2F;features&#x2F;brazils-revolutio...</a>

New guide, same as the old guide, minus dairy as its own category, and carbs are de-emphasized.<p>This seems pretty non-controversial.<p>The old food pyramid suggested having as many carbs as you could handle, and made it seem like milk and meat were absolutely vital.<p>The new take just lumps those into protein and suggests proteins as a whole should be about 25% of your diet.<p>While no guide could possibly please everyone (there&#x27;s a diet trend for every possible food combo out there), this seems like a reasonable baseline to me.<p>As for the recipes they list... omg no.

Great Job, Canada. They&#x27;ve shot down many of the lobbying companies when publishing this.<p>It&#x27;s not perfect, but it&#x27;s a good start.

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.

Jesus, who invented that???<p>Mac and cheese with a veggie twist<p>* 375 mL (1 ½ cups) whole grain macaroni or fusilli * 10 mL (2 tsp) soft non-hydrogenated margarine

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.<p>I love this. Great job Canada!

I haven&#x27;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&#x27;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.

I can&#x27;t believe they still promote horrible industrial oils high in omega-6 as healthy fats:<p><pre><code> Unsaturated fats that are good for your health: peanut, soybean, safflower, sunflower. </code></pre> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;food-guide.canada.ca&#x2F;en&#x2F;tips-for-healthy-eating&#x2F;commonly-used-terms&#x2F;#oils-with-healthy-fats" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;food-guide.canada.ca&#x2F;en&#x2F;tips-for-healthy-eating&#x2F;comm...</a>

It&#x27;s great that they highlight the effects of targeted advertising on eating behaviour: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;food-guide.canada.ca&#x2F;en&#x2F;healthy-eating-recommendations&#x2F;marketing-can-influence-your-food-choices&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;food-guide.canada.ca&#x2F;en&#x2F;healthy-eating-recommendatio...</a><p>Definitely good to see a government organization being aware of how the modern world works.

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

I hope that plate at the top of the front page isn&#x27;t a suggested meal size!<p>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?

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.

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

It&#x27;s not the same anti-evolutionary guude promoted by the EAT foundation is it?

It&#x27;s interesting how we can all check out Canada&#x27;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.<p>In any case, this one appears pretty similar to the Dutch one, so I guess that that&#x27;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.