New Canada Food Guide Includes Emphasis On Plant Proteins

Health Canada released their revised Canada Food Guide on Tuesday, January 22.

The new guide includes three groups; fruits and vegetables, whole grain foods and protein foods.

The new federal document shows a picture of a plate half filled with fruits and veggies, but unlike the previous food guide, there are no specific portion amounts outlined.

"The baseline message about making half of your plate fruits and vegetables would be a very good one," says Director General of the Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion with Health Canada, Dr. Hasan Hutchinson. "So it's not about portion per se, but perhaps about proportion in terms of what you take onto your plate."

The guide also emphasizes choosing protein foods from plants "more often", and encourages eating a variety of foods each day.

This push towards plant-based proteins concerned sectors like dairy and beef, which have not been excluded in the Food Guide, but no longer have their own food group.

Dr. Hutchinson says they didn't want input from industry on their revisions, and have based the recommendations on scientific evidence.

"We felt very strongly about that because in the last Food Guide, from 2007, there was a fair amount of criticism about the influence of industry, and we think to make sure we keep the confidence of Canadians, health professionals and other stakeholders, it was necessary to stay quite strict on that."

Health Canada says the best available evidence was considered such as scientific reports on food and health from respected authorities including systematic reviews on over 100 food-related topics, as well as over 400 convincing conclusions.