Food Guide Facts: Background for Educators and Communicators

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2. A Tour of Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating

This fact sheet offers an overview of Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating, pointing out key concepts and features.

The Food Guide is designed to help all Canadians, four years of age and over, to look, feel and perform at their best. It does this by recommending a pattern for selecting foods to meet their needs for energy and essential nutrients.

A New Name
The addition of "healthy eating" in the title, Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating, projects the Food Guide's purpose of promoting better health among Canadians.

Healthy eating is the sum total of all food choices made over time. lt is the overall pattern of foods eaten and not any one food, meal or even a day's meals that determines if an eating pattern is healthy.

In practical terms, this means that foods and meals should not be labelled "good" or "bad." The nutritional characteristics of any one food or meal can be balanced by choices made at other meals and on other days to create an overall pattern of healthy eating.

A New Type of Food Guide
This is the first Food Guide in Canada that guides consumers, who have a wide range of energy needs, in the selection of all foods, including such items as butter, oil, candies and snack foods. This new approach to healthy eating is referred to as a total diet approach.

The total diet approach differs from the foundation diet approach of previous Food Guides. A foundation diet is a very basic diet, which meets minimum nutrient requirements but falls short of meeting the energy needs of most people. A foundation diet does not give guidance to consumers on all of the food decisions they face daily.

The total diet approach, however, helps consumers make all food choices and takes into account current nutrition concerns and recommendations.

This Food Guide helps consumers sort out issues about energy balance, the fat content of food, the importance of foods containing starch and fibre, and the moderate use of salt, alcohol and caffeine.

Beginning with the Rainbow Side of the Guide...

Rainbow Design Replaces the Circle
The most dramatic visual change from previous Food Guides is that the four food groups are now depicted in a rainbow design. All four food groups are important in healthy eating but the amounts needed from each group vary.

Food Groups Have Changed Names
The names of the food groups have changed slightly and are now called:

• Grain Products
• Vegetables & Fruit
• Milk Products
• Meat & Alternatives.

Directional Statements
Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating includes key statements to give more direction on choosing foods than previous Food Guides.

• Enjoy a variety of foods from each group every day was emphasized in the last Food Guide and remains a key message.
• Choose lower-fat foods more often highlights the importance of choosing lower-fat foods to meet the Nutrition Recommendation that only 30% of energy should come from fat and 10% from saturated fat in the Canadian diet. This directional statement applies to foods in all four food groups and the Other Foods category.
• Choose whole grain and enriched products more often, under the Grain Products arc, acknowledges the importance of grain foods for iron, zinc and the B vitamins. Whole grains are also a source of dietary fibre.
• Choose dark green and orange vegetables and orange fruit more often, under the Vegetables & Fruit arc, supports adequate intakes of vitamin A and the B vitamin, folacin.
• Choose lower-fat mllk products more often, under the Milk Products arc, encourages consumers to take advantage of the wide availability of lower-fat milk products as a way to lower total dietary fat, particularly saturated fat.
• Choose leaner meats, poultry and fish, as well as dried peas, beans and lentils more often, under the Meat & Alternatives arc, emphasizes lower-fat choices.

Now, Flip Over to the Bar Side...

The Number of Servings Has Increased
The number of servings has increased for Grain Products and Vegetables & Fruit. This does not mean that everyone has to aim for the upper range of servings in every group. Remember that this Food Guide provides guidance for a wide range of people.

A woman with energy needs at about 1 800 Cal (7 500 kJ) will aim for the lower end of the range, whereas an athletic teenage boy needing around 3 200 Cal (13 400 kJ) will choose in the upper end of the range for all food groups.

Other Foods Appear as a New Category of Foods
For the first time, foods that don't fit into any of the four food groups are recognized. The Other Foods category covers a wide range of dietary items and beverages that contribute to taste and enjoyment in eating. The inclusion of these foods in the Food Guide is in keeping with the healthy eating philosophy that all foods can be part of a healthy eating pattern.

There is no recommended number of servings or serving sizes because this category includes a wide range of dietary items that are used very differently by people.

Vitality
Vitality is a message that encourages Canadians to enjoy total well-being through the integration of eating well, being active and feeling good about themselves.

Some Serving Sizes Have Changed

Grain Products

Some Grain Products are shown as a 2-serving portion to better reflect how people eat these particular foods. For instance, people tend to eat a whole bagel or 250 mL/1 cup of pasta which have the same amount of carbohydrate as 2 slices of bread.

For cold cereal, a serving of cereal is now given as a weight of 30 g instead of by volume to be consistent with the way the serving sizes are reported on cereal labels. Weight is a more practical way of measuring cereals because they vary tremendously in volume depending on whether they are light and fluffy like puffed rice or dense like granola.

Meat & Alternatives

Serving sizes range from 50-100 g for two reasons:

• The range recognizes that people eat different quantities of meat at different meals. For example, a ham sandwich made with 2 slices or 50g of ham is a serving of meat just as a chicken breast contributing 90-100g of meat is counted as 1 serving.
• The range accounts for a smaller serving size better suited to a child or an adult with a small appetite.

The peanut butter serving is halved to 30 mL/2 tbsp. This new serving size is more consistent with the amount people generally eat. And, by example, it shows consumers how to lower fat through sensible selection, not omission.

The egg serving is changed slightly. Changing the egg serving from 2 eggs to a range of 1-2 eggs is a reminder that eggs, although a very nutritious food, should be eaten in moderation.

Energy
Foods chosen using this Food Guide will provide between 1 800 and 3 200 Cal (7500-13 400 kJ) depending on the number and types of servings selected from each food group, the size of portions chosen and the kinds of Other Foods added.