If elected as our next prime minister, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer vows to review the Canada Food Guide, which was introduced in January.
The idea itself is desirable. Even though the new food guide took 12 years to come to fruition, the food guide’s review should be a continuous process, aiming for a new version every five years or so.
Scheer’s intent is clearly motivated by his will to instrumentalize the food guide and politicize healthy eating, and that is never a good thing.
Waiting 12 years to see a new food guide made us all forget about the food guide itself. Even though the food guide in our country has been institutionalized for quite some time and children across the country have been learning from it religiously, most of us were going about our adult lives as if blissfully ignorant.
Few cared or wanted to follow the guide once adulthood kicked in. The latest release has reminded us how important the guide is, for all of us, and has made us aware of how irrelevant a guide can become if it’s not reviewed regularly.
The food guide remains one of the most-read public documents produced by the federal government, with many readers being influenced by the guide itself.
According to a recent survey by Angus Reid Global, 34 per cent of Canadians have changed some of their food consumption habits due to recommendations put forth by the new food guide. While the old food guide became nutritionally prehistoric and looked tired, the new version appears to be more impactful, essentially because it’s fresh and new, but also due to the hype it’s received.
Therefore, Scheer’s intent to review the food guide has merit. It should happen every five years, at least, which is what we see elsewhere around the world.
When speaking to dairy farmers in Saskatoon last week, Scheer registered his concerns about the food guide and how he felt the review process was flawed.
He is certainly entitled to his opinion, but scientifically, the new food guide is based on sound research and science, whether we agree with it or not. Individuals involved in the process were well-intended and quite competent. What Scheer should have pointed out is how the process was exclusive, from a disciplinary perspective.
Most individuals involved in the revision were high-qualified nutritionists and dietitians, and that’s about it. What was missing from the process were other scientific views of food systems.
To grant full moral authority of good nutrition to a handful of professions is plainly short-sighted. Neither economists, historians, sociologists, nor animal or plant scientists were involved in this latest process, at least not actively.
Health Canada has signalled in recent months that it intends to broaden its portfolio of disciplines from which it will seek knowledge in years to come. This is indeed encouraging news.
What Health Canada also got right is that it excluded any industry’s active participation from the process.
Allowing industry to get involved in the review of the food guide in the past has often led to making the guide itself a political instrument.
Unlike our new guide, where the language itself is nutritionally focused, using terms like “fibres” and “proteins,” former food guides were all about milk, cheese, meat, fruits, and vegetables.
Old guides marketed food products, whereas the new one bases its education on the “whys” of nutrition. Weaponizing the food guide to promote certain foods against other food sources never results in a positive outcome.
While this is certainly a good approach, Health Canada also needs to recognize that industry does support strong research and this should remain part of the scope of any reviews related to the food guide.
Unfortunately, any food discussion is always followed by politics, and Scheer really made a mess of the message he tried to convey last week.
To state that chocolate milk saved his son’s life points to a much larger problem for him and his party. He argued in front of hundreds of dairy farmers that his picky-eating son couldn’t maintain proper nutrition, so chocolate milk was the solution.
Obviously, we shouldn’t judge Scheer’s parenting skills and should respect that feeding his child chocolate milk is his prerogative. But most Canadians will appreciate that chocolate milk is essentially a treat and nothing more.
Suggesting that chocolate milk is a matter of survival, even if said as a joke, is not wise.
Basic, whole milk, not sugar-rich chocolate milk, remains one of the best ingredients that nature has to offer for children. Given his status, such a message weakens the very point Scheer was trying to make to Canadians.
Most importantly, though, it undermines the valuable work our dairy farmers are doing to provide a wholesome ingredient that is found in many healthy products we consume every day.
That comment alone, even taken out of context, will likely come back to haunt Scheer more than once. His saving grace may be that it happened in the middle of summer, but unfortunately for Scheer and his party, these ill-advised statements tend to stand the test of time.
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.
