Canada's Food Guide, Fresh or Fowl????

Canada's Food Guide teaches us to eat healthy! Or does it?? There has been a lot of debate about The Canada's Food Guide over the past decade, and rightly so. In this blog I will discuss and explain why Canada's Food Guide may not be the best option for you in order to get your body to a healthy state!

(Dieticians, please accept my apologies what you will read I KNOW you will not agree with it.)

Reading the Food Rainbow, What does it all Mean?

Yes that colorful rainbow! How wonderful! Here is what the Canada's Food Guide tells us:

Depending on your age and gender you should be eating 8-10 servings of fruits and vegetables, 3-8 servings of Grain products, 2-4 servings of milk and Alternatives and 1-3 servings of Meat and Alternatives.

Ok in my opinion and in a lot of other health professionals opinions this is really backwards thinking in nutrition.

First the positive:

Vegetables are first on the list! Yes, vegetables are important! They are choked full of vitamins/minerals and are of low calorie composition. However in my opinion that is not the number of food choice on the list.

Meats and Alternatives should be on the top of the list. WHY? Fist and foremost Protein in meats and alternatives are extremely complex for the body to break down speeding up the metabolic processes of the body. It takes 9 calories to break down 1 gram of protein and 4 calories to break down a carbohydrate. So gram for gram protein in its leanest form is what you need to be focusing on.

In addition protein is the building blocks for all active tissue in the body. The more active tissue you have (muscle) the better your body performs and the higher your metabolic rate goes (Metabolism = all chemical reactions in the body)

I would put Meat and alt as 6-8 servings per day!

Next: Fruits and Vegetables. Great! Eat as many vegetables as you want. Do you know that 16 cups of lettuce is equal to 1 cup of Pasta in terms of calories! You can never go wrong with combining a salad and a chicken breast together, along with Feta cheese, and some olives you have the perfect meal!!

Grain Products: Do you realize that we have been told stay away from fat! Fat is bad and will make you fat! Well we did that and our society got even FATTER!! Answer to this is that in lowering our consumption of fats we increased our consumption of grains! Grains, breads and cereals etc should be limited in the diet. Your body has a overabundance of stored carbohydrates in the muscle and liver. Your body can run very well if you limit your carbohydrate intake and increase your healthy fat intake and protein intake! As a society we EAT TOO MANY CARBOHYDRATES!!!

Milk and Alternatives: Get rid of this category PLEASE!!! Do you realize that we are the only mammal to drink other mammals milk???? Milk is NOT good for the body no matter in what form. First many people are lactose intolerant, they lack the correct enzyme to break down milk, which should give you the first clue that milk is no good. Second milk is pure SUGAR, and very little protein. SUGAR makes us fat. hmmmm are you seeing the connection?? In addition they have SOY listed on the food guide!! SOY actually increases estrogen levels in both men and women! Increasing estrogen levels leads to CANCER!!! In my opinion we have been bombarded by advertising that milk "does a body good" when in fact it has been making us overweight, sluggish, fat and in some cases sick. Stop drinking MILK!!!!

Fats - Its unfortunate that they do not have an official category for Fats. Fats in the right form actually help the body shed weight, lower bad cholestrol levels increase good cholestrol levels and also can help you become mentally sharper and have more focus in the day!! The key is to actually eat the right fats and decrease the fats that the body does not need. Here is some news to, your body NEEDS saturated fats, but in small amounts! You can have whole eggs! I have 6 whole eggs a day and my cholestrol is excellent! I have eaten bags of cashews and nuts at a time and have NEVER gained an ounce of fat.

There are food that heal and foods that kill! I hope I have outlined why it is important not to stick with the Canada's Food Guide and how you can better make choices that will serve your health instead of destroying it.