On this day in vegan history · January 22, 2019
Canada Retires the Four Food Groups
Ottawa tore up seventy years of nutrition orthodoxy and told Canadians, in plain language, to choose plant-based protein more often.
The facts
- Date unveiled
- January 22, 2019
- Location
- Jean-Talon Market, Montreal
- Unveiled by
- Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor
- What changed
- Four food groups (with separate meat and dairy categories) replaced by three: vegetables and fruits, whole grain foods, and protein foods; serving sizes dropped entirely
On January 22, 2019, Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor stood in Montreal's Jean-Talon Market and unveiled a completely rebuilt Canada's Food Guide. Gone were the four food groups that had anchored Canadian nutrition advice for decades, along with their serving sizes and their separate meat and dairy categories. In their place was a simple plate: half vegetables and fruit, a quarter whole grains, a quarter protein foods, with a direct line telling Canadians to choose plant-based protein more often. Health Canada said the rewrite drew only on published science and that officials had deliberately kept industry-commissioned research and food-industry lobbyists out of the drafting process.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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In no way did we want to see a perceived influence, nor did we want industry to decide what the final food guide would look like.
Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Health, on the decision to exclude industry input, January 22, 2019
Source: The Globe and Mail -
bold and courageous
Nathalie Savoie, chief executive of Dietitians of Canada, describing the new guide
Source: The Globe and Mail
Why it still matters
It was one of the first times a G7 government's official nutrition advice stopped treating meat and dairy as the anchors of a healthy plate, giving plant-based eating a government seal that advocates could point to for years afterward.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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