A Serving of Confusion

The Ottawa Citizen - September 20th, 2007

Sorry about the shock treatment. Of course, it didn't have to come to this. For the last 265 days we've have known that we should have been eating better. So why didn't we?

Excuses abound and health professionals have heard them all. We live in an age where books, seminars and websites with oodles of information are at our fingertips, so help is never too far away. Yet we're the fattest we've ever been - and getting fatter. 

Our days are hectic, so grocery shopping, meal planning and cooking healthy foods can be a challenge. And because we are so busy we're increasingly reliant on highly processed prepared foods. Meanwhile, nearly a third of the average family's food budget goes toward restaurant or takeout food.

Our biggest problem, however, may be one of perception. When it comes to our own weight, we have our heads in the sand. While only two per cent of Canadians in 2004 assessed their health as "poor," statistics showed 59 per cent of us were overweight or obese. There's no reason to believe these numbers have improved.

This is troubling for people like Francy Pillo-Blocka, president of the Canadian Council of Food and Nutrition. "Overall, Canadians report they are in good health," says Pillo-Blocka, "yet the statistics on overweight and obesity are staggering."

Instead of helping consumers, the onslaught of available information has confused us. So where do Canadians turn when we want to improve our eating habits?

We start at what would seem to be the logical place - Health Canada. It has been providing mealtime suggestions for years via its staple publication, Canada's Food Guide to Everyday Eating.

Yet, actually applying the Guide to everyday meal planning is no simple task. It requires a lot of counting, calculating and balancing, and that all takes time. The Guide says you need to eat six or seven fruits and vegetables every day, but on closer reading you see that of those six or seven, at least one veggie needs to be dark green and another must be orange.

Local dietitian Hélène Charlebois says Canadians have been having problems with the Guide for years and can't be blamed for their confusion. "We give (Canadians) these big guidelines that just say 'OK, have six or seven, if you're female, grains per day,' but how do you split that up?"

According to the Guide, women should consume at least seven servings of fruits and vegetables, six servings of grains (at least half of them whole grains), two dairy products, and two meats and alternates every day - 17 servings of different foods in all.

Men are told to consume even more, and after seeing the servings stack up, it seems like a heck of a lot of food. It makes you wonder if the Guide is helping or hindering waistlines. Even the professionals are divided on this.

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff doesn't hold back his criticism. The medical director of Ottawa's Bariatric Medical Institute, which specializes in obesity and weight management, says that the Guide is not a weight-loss tool, and that you could easily overeat by following it.

"There's no question that following the Food Guide will provide you a healthier diet than the average Canadian diet," Freedhoff says. "However, it's extremely easy ... to get to between 2,500 and 3,000 calories a day. That amount of calories would lead to weight gain in the vast majority of people.

"The Food Guide does not provide guidance on calories, and it's really calories that dictate weight." Charlebois firmly believes there is little chance a healthy person will gain weight if they follow the guide correctly. But she does offer a few words of caution.

"It depends on what you choose in the Food Guide. If you look at the portion sizes, some of them are small, but some of them are too big."

Some of the Guide's recommended servings are huge: One serving of cottage cheese is a full cup of creamy curds. "There's a lot of calories," notes Charlebois. "You're looking at, probably, 300 calories in a full cup of cottage cheese." All that for a single dairy serving, while other options such as skim milk or low-fat, sugar-free yogurt have fewer than 100 calories per serving.

Freedhoff says the guide doesn't stress the importance of making low-calorie selections, and allows people to be irresponsible with their food choices. "Chocolate milk is part of the food guide ... You can have pudding if you want for your dairy needs."

He also takes particular exception to the fleshy food group - meats and alternatives. "Our Food Guide includes red meat as a good, nutritional choice. The reasoning why is completely beyond me. Red meat has been shown to increase the risk of multiple types of cancers, diabetes and heart disease. The appropriate recommendation on red meat would be to minimize its consumption."

 The obesity expert also questions the way the Guide treats all meats equally. "The Food Guide suggests all protein is created equal when they're not created equal, either from a health perspective or the calorie perspective."

As far as the Guide is concerned, he says, lean ground beef is as nutritionally satisfactory as skinless chicken breast. But a 75-gram serving of lean ground beef has 176 calories and 10.5 grams of fat, while the same amount of chicken breast has just 119 calories and 1.5 grams of fat.

There are variances in all four of the major food groups. The Guide counts a single slice of bread as one serving of grains, but so is half a bagel. Yet it doesn't take a degree in nutrition to recognize that half an average bagel contains more calories than a single slice of bread. "A slice of bread should have ... about 80 calories," says Charlebois. "(But) half a bagel is 150 to 180 calories, depending on the label."

No wonder the average eater is confused. But the blame for our weight issues certainly cannot be laid at the feet of Canada's Food Guide.

"The food industry has exploded in the portion sizes," Charlebois sighs. Not only are some slices bigger than others, the levels of fat, fibre and sugar they contain vary as well. "People have to understand a slice of bread isn't a slice of bread isn't a slice of bread ... It's not the same as counting money."
After meeting with a dietitian or weight-loss specialist, you start to see the world - the grocery store, the refrigerator and, especially, the inside of your kitchen cupboards - in a whole new light.

I sure did.

While flipping through the Guide one night, I noticed that it says half a bagel should weigh just 45 grams. I ran to my kitchen, where my fears were confirmed: I had a bag of freshly-baked mutants, each weighing nearly 120 grams! Not only is a slice of bread not just a slice of bread, it turns out it's not half a delicious bagel from the artisan bakery down the street either.

Who is at fault here? Sure, there may be issues with the Guide, and yes, manufacturers are making mammoth-sized bagels, but in the end, we are the ones putting food into our mouths. As confusing or time-consuming as it may be, the onus is on us to be more aware of what - and how much - we're eating.

But this, you probably know. The trick is how to do that, given how little time and energy we have and how much information (carbs  or no carbs?) there is to sift through.

That's why over the next 14 weeks, Style Weekly will take a close look at everything to do with nutrition, from how to read a nutrition label - see page J4 of this issue - to what the phrase "whole grains" really means, from the dangers of salt to the calorie count of your morning commute.

Whether you want to lose weight or just feel better, we'll give you the tools to make healthier choices.

You'll fulfil that resolution yet.

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