Putting Canada’s Food Guide onto your Plate

By Rosie Schwartz, RD, FDC

Eating well is essential for good health for your tomorrows but don’t forget, it also provides the fuel for feeling good for your day to day living today. Canada’s Food Guide offers the guidelines on how to make these smart food choices. For one, it suggests eating a variety of healthy foods each day as selecting an assortment of choices can help you to meet your nutrient requirements. It’s also key to select those wholesome options in a balanced manner in order to meet those needs.

Canada’s Food Guide

This plate concept shows us just how to do it:

• 1/2 the plate – fruits and vegetables

• 1/4 the plate – protein foods

• 1/4 the plate – whole grains

Balance Your Plate

While it may seem simple, there is confusion about these healthy eating recommendations. Though vegetables and fruits offer a range of nutritional perks, they don’t replace the need for the other foods, such as whole grains or protein foods. The same goes for protein foods not replacing whole grains and so on.

In fact, eating these foods together can offer an assortment of advantages. For example, when you consume whole grains, containing the mineral iron, on their own, the iron is not well absorbed by your body. Eat them together with iron-containing meat or vitamin C-rich fruits or vegetables and the iron absorption increases. Another example is eating produce rich in the colourful pigments called carotenoids, such as beta carotene, together with a food containing fats. As the beta carotene needs fat to be absorbed, eating a green salad with an oil-containing dressing or carrots in a beef stew will boost the beta carotene absorption. This concept of reaping more nutrition when you eat foods together, rather than on their own, is called food synergy.

What is Plant-Based Eating?

When the Food Guide was first released, many people misunderstood the recommendation to choose protein foods more often that come from plants. The suggestion to eat a plant-based diet is not new. While many assume this means a vegetarian or vegan eating pattern, plant-based eating actually means filling your plate with an abundance of plant foods. This includes whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds and pulses, like lentils and chickpeas. But having a plant-based diet certainly doesn’t mean banishing foods such as meat, dairy products, eggs and fish.

As the Food Guide also recommends limiting highly processed foods, don’t be fooled by terms like “plant-based” on the labels of these highly processed, or what’s often called ultra-processed foods. Many of these choices supply an excess of sodium and less than healthy fats while providing fewer nutrients. 

Instead, go for more whole foods from the following categories.

Vegetables and Fruit

Enjoy an assortment of canned, frozen and fresh produce. These foods are top -notch offerings which supply a range of vital nutrients, such as vitamins C and A, fibre, potassium and antioxidants. Go for a variety of colourful choices as they are packed with pigments which help defend against a variety of diseases.

Whole grains

Choose whole grains over refined ones to obtain the most nutrition as they’re naturally packed with nutrients, such as B vitamins, antioxidants and fibre. Be adventurous and try new grains as each offers different nutrients.

For example, barley supplies more blood cholesterol lowering soluble fibre than whole wheat with its regularity promoting properties. As well, research shows whole grains over fibre supplements may offer more protection against diseases, such as colon cancer, than do the supplements.

Protein Foods

Though selections, like meat, fish, poultry, dairy products, eggs, soyfoods, nuts and seeds and pulses (dried peas and beans, such as lentils and chickpeas) are known as protein foods, they actually offer a bounty of other nutrients,- unlike the trendy protein powders which offer only protein. Along with protein, these protein foods provide valuable nutrients, such as B vitamins, iron, zinc and more depending on what you select. Meat such as beef and pork, poultry, dairy products, eggs and fish also supply essential amino acids, the building blocks of protein while dairy foods offer calcium. For meatless meals, enjoy pulses and nuts and seeds which contain fibre. But as Health Canada recommends, go for a variety of healthy choices when selecting your protein foods.

Myths do abound about these foods, especially when it comes to beef and the environment. Beef cattle in Canada, unlike in some other countries, are raised in a sustainable way. Cattle grazing on grassland in Canada actually supports the habitats of various wildlife.

Keep in mind that Canada’s Food Guide also promotes developing health eating habits. It’s more than just what you eat. It suggests the following:

• Be mindful of your eating habits
  • Take time to eat
  • Notice when you are hungry and when you are full

• Cook more often
  • Plan what you eat
  • involve others in planning and preparing meals

• Enjoy your food
  • Culture and food traditions can ba a part of healthy eating

• Eat meals with others

Here are some recipes that balance grain, vegetables and protein.