RESULTS of a study by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and one proposed solution to remedy a perceived problem, are enough to cause heart palpitations.
In a survey of prices in 66 communities across Canada, the foundation discovered wide variations in cost for the same basket of healthy foods. Some Canadians pay six times the average price for the same staples.
In addition to the check on food prices and availability, the foundation surveyed more than 1,400 Canadians about their food buying options and choices. Among the questions: who should take responsibility for improving access to affordable healthy food?
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Eighty-six percent recommended that governments regulate the price of nutritious foods to ensure they are equally affordable in all regions of Canada.
Well, the hearts of these respondents might be in the right place, but more government regulation?
This is where the palpitations begin.
Government regulation is not the answer to the encouragement of healthy eating habits and ready access to nutritious food.
In the first place, such regulations would be designed for consumers, not for the farmers who produce much of Canada’s nutritious food. If the regulatory goal is to reduce the price of food for the masses, history shows it’s farmers who end up accepting less. That, they cannot afford.
The result would be fewer farmers, reduced food supplies and higher prices for domestic and imported food.
As a percentage of income, Canadians already pay less than most countries for their food needs – about 12 percent. In fact, as of Feb. 12, the average Canadian consumer has earned enough money to buy food for the year.
According to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, other countries within the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development on average spend 8.3 percent more on food than Canadians do. Japanese consumers pay 35.7 percent more and Mexicans pay 125 percent more.
The issue, then, is not price. Uniform national food pricing has never been an expectation of Canadian consumers, who choose where they live, what they eat, where they shop and what they buy.
Nor would food price regulation encourage people to buy healthier foods. The choices are there, but whether they buy fruits, vegetables, brown rice and milk is another matter entirely.
Though there is plenty of information available about healthy eating, consumers must also contend with the advertising juggernaut that often suggests they are too unskilled, too unfamiliar or too time constrained to make nutritious meals using basic ingredients.
Fortunately, respondents in the heart foundation study realized this as well. Fully 93 percent recommended that governments make public education about nutrition an important part of health programs.
Education will indeed be the key to encouraging healthier eating.
The heart foundation’s study is a useful way to bring food issues into the public eye.
Solutions to problems of poverty, distribution and eating habits will require more concentrated study and more complex solutions than knee-jerk demands for government intervention.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
