VANCOUVER – The new Canada Food Guide has reduced portions and places a greater emphasis on fruit, vegetables and grain over meat and protein alternatives such as beans, nuts and tofu.
Individual meat and alternative servings are down to 75 grams, which is 2.5 ounces or half a cup, something groups promoting pork and beef consumption must learn to live with, said Mary Ann Bennie, a nutritionist with Pork Canada.
The greatest concerns are the reduced amount of recommended meat consumption and the fact it was grouped together with protein options such as tofu, nuts, beans and lentils, Bennie said.
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“We can tell people you won’t get flatulence from meat,” she said.
The guide has not been revised in 15 years and was written with input from industry, health care professionals and health advocacy groups.
It attempts to help people meet nutritional needs and reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and osteoporosis.
The guide breaks down serving requirements based on age, starting with the two year old with a small appetite and progressing to the person older than 50 who needs more vitamin D for healthy bones.
“It recommends calorie intake based on a sedentary person,” Bennie said during the Canadian Meat Council annual meeting in Vancouver.
The guide is relevant because health care professionals, nutritionists and dietitians use it to educate people about nutrition and diet plans.
The guide recommends drinking skim, one or two percent milk and including up to two tablespoons of unsaturated fat daily. It recommends eating more whole grain and green and orange vegetables and drinking water. Instead of juice, people should choose whole fruit when possible.
The guide recommends less sodium and fat in diets, suggesting a limit on processed meat such as wieners and deli meat. Groups such as pork producers are already looking at ways to change recipes to use less salt.
Meat is not entirely abandoned, said Lisa Mina, nutritionist with the Beef Information Centre.
“We think that the guide still continues to confirm lean meat is still part of a healthy diet.”
Beef and pork producers need to focus on the positive qualities of meat and explain to consumers that it is a nutrient rich food with relatively fewer calories, she added.
People also need to know eating meat is a good way to deliver omega 3 fatty acids and selenium through enhanced pork products. Beef researchers are working on similar programs to introduce more conjugated linoleic acid and omega 3.
The Beef Information Centre is pushing ground beef as a healthy food because half the beef consumed is served in this form. The beef is healthy, but people need to think about what they eat with it, such as sauces.
The centre also continues to work with health care workers to persuade teenaged girls and women to eat enough meat for adequate iron intake.
Thousands of information brochures have been distributed to physicians and other health-care professionals who are able to send a powerful message about better nutrition, Mina said.
