Queen's University Doctor Questions Motives Behind New Canada Food Guide

There's a lot of attention being paid to the new, revised Canada Good Guide, which has yet to be released.

Dr. Andrew Samis is a general surgeon and ICU doctor at Queen's University in Ontario. He was a keynote speaker last week at the Manitoba Dairy Conference in Winnipeg.

"I'm expressing concern from the documents that have been put out by Health Canada, that the current food guide is going to come down against eggs, meat and dairy," he commented. "There's no real scientific evidence to do that. There is not the level of conclusive evidence to suggest that is a smart idea. In fact, there seems to be a shift towards plants and away from animal food that isn't explained by the literature."

Dr. Samis wanders if bias is playing a role in the development of the new food guide.

"When you look at all the science put together and look at the studies and you see Health Canada issuing a food guide that suggests that we should be moving, to use their terms - shifting to more plants in our diet and away from eggs, meat, and dairy - I think we legitimately can ask the question, 'Where is this coming from?'. I'm not finding it in the science. So is there some agenda here that we're not aware of. I'm not alluding to that, but I'm saying Canadians can legitimately ask that question."

Dr. Samis says the scientific community is divided on the impacts of eating a high fat diet and warns that the government should not be issuing guidelines across the board with little evidence to suggest that consuming fat (saturated or unsaturated) is bad for you.

He even suggests that there could be a correlation between consuming dairy saturated fat and a reduced risk of stroke.