Nutrition Policy

Food Guide Review is a Recipe for Disaster

The Ottawa Citizen - November 2005

Thursday, November 24, 2005
Section: News Page: A13
Page Name: Arguments

Today, the final public consultation on the latest revision to Canada's "food rainbow" will commence in Ottawa. While one might reasonably expect an efficient, scientific and thoughtful approach to the rainbow's development, I for one worry that Canadians will be stuck yet again with a politically influenced, industry-sponsored, non-scientific approach to healthy eating -- an approach that pays more homage to the ambitions of food industry lobbyists than to scientific research, evidence-based medicine or the health and welfare of Canadians. Given how important diet-related disease is to both the lives of Canadians and our economy, you would think that the experts chosen to research and make recommendations as to what Canadians should be eating would be our brightest and best dietary researchers.

You might also think that the person selecting the advisory panel would be free from any industry ties.

So who did Health Canada contact to form the advisory panel? It contacted the former long-time CEO of the now defunct National Institute of Nutrition, a body whose food industry benefactors included the likes of Heinz, Nestle, Kraft, the Canadian Salt Company and a holding company for a huge chain of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, Scott's Restaurants.

All three expensively educated, but independent, experts nominated by the Ontario Society of Nutrition Professionals in Public Health, were rejected by Health Canada officials.

So who are the 12 members chosen to shape the future of Canadian dietary recommendations, which are handed out at the office of every doctor and dietitian, taught in so many schools, often as early as Grade 1, and serve widely in Canada as the gospel of nutrition? They are: The director of scientific and regulatory affairs of the Food and Consumer Product Manufacturers of Canada, representing 180 member companies; the president of the Vegetable Oil Industry Council, representing 85,000 oilseed growers; the nutrition manager of the British Columbia Dairy Federation; four community dietitians from municipal governments (two with fewer than 15,000 residents); a professor of nutrition at one of the smallest universities in Canada; a professor of nutrition with ties to the sugar industry; an untenured assistant professor of social psychology; a policy researcher with the Manitoba government interested in the cultural aspects of food with a bachelor's degree in nutrition; and the director of prevention at the Alberta Cancer Board. We'll soon see if the public health nominees have the necessary scientific expertise, political savvy and institutional support to stand up to the food industry.

One might wonder how prior revisions have gone. Look no further than 1992. In short, during 1992 Canada's Food Rainbow dramatically increased the recommended number of servings in every category of the food guide, despite the fact that there was no medical evidence to suggest we were eating too little. We were told to eat, on average, 25 per cent more meat and meat alternatives, 50 per cent more milk products, 67 per cent more fruits and vegetables, and, much to the delight of many of our grain farmers I'm sure, 113 per cent more grain products.

Looking back at 1992, I don't recall the average Canadian growing two feet in height to require so much additional food.

Health Canada explains the difference in guides as being the difference between a "Foundation Diet" approach with the 1982 guidelines recommending the bare minimums and the 1992 guidelines providing greater range of choice.

Sure Canadians should eat more fruit and vegetables, but the 1992 food guide, with bold pronouncements to eat more of all types of food, and meek or imperceptible directions to eat less salty, sugary, greasy and calorie-dense food, was a recipe for disaster.

Since 1992, 24 million copies of these guides have been distributed, and since then the average number of calories consumed by Canadians -- a number that had held steady since roughly 1975 -- has risen by close to 17 per cent, closely mirroring the rise in the rates of obesity in Canada.

I'm sure it would also interest Canadians to know that if they do follow our current daily food guidelines, they will be consuming from 1,800 to 3,200 calories -- far more than most people burn in a day and certainly enough to cause the majority of women with healthy weights to gain.

You might ask if it really matters what the Food Guide says. The answer is certainly a resounding yes. The World Health Organization estimates that an average of five years of healthy life expectancy is lost due to just six dietary risk factors.

The Centre for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit research organization dedicated to advocacy for health and nutrition-related issues, estimates that more than 25,000 premature deaths occur annually in Canada due to diet-related disease.

Diane Gorman, an assistant deputy minister of health, has estimated that diet-related illness accounts for a total of $6.6 billion lost annually from Canada's economy.

It is horrifying that the backbone of Canadian dietary recommendations -- recommendations taught in elementary school, high school, dietitian school and medical school -- is not being designed solely on the basis of evidence-based medicine.

Quite frankly, even if the recommendations in our new Food Guide were to turn out to be identical to the evidence-based recommendations of Dr. Walter Willett, former head of nutrition at Harvard, who is completely free of industry involvement and who used medical research to both create and prove the superiority of his Healthy Eating Pyramid, I would still be horrified.

How dare our federal government entrust our health and our children's health to individuals who plainly have conflicting commercial interests?

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff is a specialist in obesity medicine at the Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa.