Canada’s Food Guide, produced by Health Canada, is a resource that provides practical, evidence-based recommendations to help Canadians make healthy food choices and develop healthy eating patterns. The guide aims to help Canadians meet their nutritional needs while reducing the risk of chronic disease and contributing to overall health and well-being. The first guide was introduced in 1942 and the recommendations have evolved over the years to reflect the latest scientific research.
Last year’s guide made a significant shift in its recommendations away from meat and dairy food groups. The 2024 guide emphasizes a diet rich in plant-based proteins including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, beans, lentils, and soy.
Last year research completed at McGill University, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, found that if half the red and processed meat in a person’s diet was replaced with plant-based protein foods, they could live on average nearly 9 months longer because of a reduced risk of chronic disease.
Changing diet in this way also reduces diet-related carbon emissions by 25%. Ruminant livestock such as beef, lamb, and goat, produce methane as part of their digestive process. Methane is a greenhouse gas with far more climate changing potency than carbon dioxide. According to research from the World Resource Institute, these animals produce seven times the emissions compared to chicken or pork and twenty times more than lentils and beans. Raising these animals also requires significantly more land for grazing which leads to a loss of biodiversity and a reduction in the land’s ability to store carbon. So eating plants vs. animals helps people live longer, healthier lives while making a positive contribution to climate change.
The Plant Based Treaty is a grassroots initiative that promotes a shift towards a just, plant-based food system that will enable the world’s populations to live safely within planetary boundaries and allow for reforestation of lands currently dedicated to animal food production. They are doing this through creating bottom up pressure that will ultimately attach a global Plant Based Treaty as a companion to the UNFCCC Paris Agreement. Modeled on the Fossil Fuel Treaty, the Plant Based Treaty aims to, put food systems at the forefront of combating the climate crisis, to halt the widespread degradation of critical ecosystems caused by animal agriculture and, to promote a shift towards healthier, sustainable plant-based diets.
This past November, Brampton, joined Paris, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, and Rainbow Lake Alberta, among others, to become the first city in Ontario to endorse the Treaty and to make “a plant based approach part of the City’s climate plan”. The City committed to feature plant-based food and drink options at city council meetings and civic events. It will also promote a plant-based awareness week and use city communication channels to residents about sustainable food practices. The BEA is currently evaluating Treaty endorsement and what it can do to help further the cause.
Personally, my wife Dayle and I have, for several years, been on a journey to reduce meat in our diets. We’ve been mostly successful in eliminating red and processed meats. We’ve also switched from cow’s milk to soy and find that it works well for both drinking and baking needs. We still eat organically grown chicken and sustainably caught fish, although these proteins have recently become a smaller part of our diet. Price alone is a factor. Compare salmon or chicken at $5-8.00 per serving with grilled or baked tofu at less than $1.00 a meal. Certainly helps with the food budget!
And going vegetarian doesn’t have to mean compromising on flavour. We’ve had some great luck experimenting with recipes from the “new” Moosewood Cookbook, published in 2000 by Ten Speed Press and still available through on-line stores. Check out 12 of my favourite Moosewood recipes for soups, entrées, and desserts. I substitute Canadian Canola Oil in place of butter and use Canadian made Liberté yoghurt instead of creme. I still use milk based cheeses where called for. There are a growing number of reasonably flavourful vegan cheese choices now available although they are more expensive than their cow’s milk counterparts. As Earth Week approaches, think of your health and the health of our planet and try a vegetarian option instead of meat. You just might find that you like it!
