E-mail A Friend Tell a friend about the information found on this page by sending them an e-mail.   Your Name: Your E-mail:   Type an e-mail address, then click add: Add a Personal Message: (Optional)

January/February 2002 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Editor’s Notebook Inside Story Feature: Harvest of goodwill À la carte Reverberations

Harvest of Goodwill (Feature) | Canadian food firsts | Just the beer facts
Food nutrition lables get a facelift | Securing a meal | Archives
The ABCs of healthy eating | Comfort food | Dining al fresco | A taste of Paris

Walking down a typical grocery aisle, we are bombarded with food products claiming non-fat, low-calorie and high-fibre content. We cross-check poly-saturate percentages, inhale nutritional supplements and determine how much of the food we eat is derived from natural products. As our understanding and concern regarding health matters increases, so does our fervor to know what is in our food. And yet, watching what we eat has become so complicated we sometimes forget that choosing food can be easy and delicious.

It’s time to simplify the alimental, Canada. And food experts say learning your nutritional ABCs is easy. In March, the Dietitians of Canada are bringing this point home with their new campaign, "The ABCs of Healthy Eating," as part of their annual Nutrition Month program. The focus of the campaign is on nutrients: A for antioxidants, B for B vitamins, and C for calcium and related bone nutrients.

As one of the top 10 health concerns for Canadians, nutrition is on everyone’s mind. "This campaign reinforces the improvement of healthy eating and addresses consumer questions on the three important nutrient groups," says Anne Gagné, coordinator for Nutrition Month, held by the Dietitians of Canada, the only association of dietitians in Canada and the third largest in the world.

Part of the campaign’s pitch is to remind Canadians to choose a variety of foods from all four food groups – grain, veggies and fruit, dairy and meat and alternatives. The campaign helps to simplify our choices by suggesting we choose whole grain and enriched bread products, dark green and orange vegetables and fruit, lower-fat milk products, leaner meats, poultry and fish, as well as dried peas, beans and lentils. And the Nutrition Month campaign is based on good science and common sense.

Since each group offers different nutritional benefits, the experts advise us not to rely on a single nutrient supplement since nutrients do not work in isolation. For example, your body uses calcium to build strong bones and teeth, but to process calcium, you need vitamin D. As a complex machine, the human body requires more than a simple fix.

Nutrition Month began in the early 1980s to improve consumer lifestyles. A decade later, Health Canada published an updated Canada Food Guide, whose principles are deeply entrenched in this year’s campaign. The guide espouses food variety with an emphasis on grains, veggies, low-fat dairy and lean meats, along with regular activity to maintain a healthy body.

And Canadians seem to be getting the message. In fact, in 1997, 89 percent of women and 83 percent of men were paying attention to their fat intake and almost two-thirds of women and over half of men were concerned about getting enough starch and fibre in their diet.

But somewhere down the grocery aisle, consumers lost sight of the basics. For example, over the last 20 years, Canadians have increasingly chosen lower fat milk, but the overall quantity of milk they drink has plunged 13 percent. In so doing, a fat source has been cut out of their diets, but the door has also been closed on a major and easy source of some basic nutrients the body requires, including calcium and vitamin D.

The "Healthy Eating" campaign is trying to buck such trends, with the goal of re-teaching Canadians about some essential nutrients our bodies require. "Canadians today are interested in more than just eating healthy foods," says Gagné. "They want to know what is in the food they eat and they are concerned about what to eat to get the right amount of nutrients."

So, off to the grocery store. Buy the reddest tomatoes you can find, some lean meat or vibrant beans, creamy yogourt and wholesome cereal. Re-learn the basics of watching what you eat — it’s as easy as A B C.

By Tobi McIntyre

To find out more about "The ABCs of Healthy Eating," go to the Dietitians of Canada’s website.

top