Take Your Choice: Chick Peas (good) or Beef (bad!)

"I can understand -- you have people saying, 'What about the family farm? Well, to be honest, if somebody says that to you, have some sympathy also for the Maritimers. Newfoundlanders had to leave, or think of something else [to replace fishing when cod stocks plummeted]."
"And anybody who says they've got a different answer [than moving to plant-based diets] is, I think, deceiving himself or herself."
"Are these people [from areas of the world where milk and beef are not part of their daily diet] any worse for it in their native situation? No, but when they come to us [emigrate to North America] they get sick."
"The question you should ask is, 'Is the diet they're recommending going to be dangerous?' No, I think it's going to have great benefits."
David Jenkins, nutrition scientist, professor, departments of nutritional sciences and medicine, University of Toronto

"The evidence for saturated fat has been very weak. What we show 'in his team's nutritional study] is going to low levels [of saturated fat] can actually be harmful."
Andrew Mente, McMaster University co-author PURE trial

"So far, Health Canada hasn't revealed what evidence they used to make that statement [suggesting a shift to a high proportion of plant-based foods], so I think we're all wondering."
"I think they really need to state the rationale for the emphasis on plant-based sources of protein, and have us understand how they linked that to diet-related disease."
"It's kind of wide open."
Stephanie Atkinson, professor, department of pediatrics, McMaster University

"Let's just say there is potential for either real or perceived conflict of interest for those sorts of reports [that fibre-rich foods decrease colorectal cancer risk]."
"In reality, in my mind this is not very different than what our existing guidance is. And even there we're recommending people go with meat alternatives."
"We have for a long time been talking about very quite small amounts of animal food in the diet to start with."
"[People would err in assuming] that we are saying, 'Have no dairy, have no meat."
Hasan Hutchinson, director general, office of nutrition policy and promotion, Health Canada

Sources suggest the new Canada food guide could lean more vegan than omnivore, the first major change to the guide in a decade. Karpenkov Denis/Getty images

In Canada's traditional food guide issued by Health Canada, there has always been a strong emphasis on dairy products helping to constitute a healthy and nutritional diet, alongside fruits, vegetables and protein from animal products and legumes. Now preparing to issue an updated food guide around the turn of the year into 2018, the Dairy Farmers of Canada have fixated on the possibility that "milk and alternatives" will be absent in the new guide. A change that Dr. Jenkins, himself a vegan, finds reasons to celebrate.

Animal-rights activists are ecstatic at the prospect of Health Canada's new, improved food guide marginalizing the consumption of meat. Criticism of Health Canada's proposed new changes that were hinted at when it released its "guiding principles" for the reworked food rules are coming from all directions. In its defence, Health Canada assures its critics that it hasn't and will not commit to recommending animal-based products be cut out altogether. But greenhouse-gas emissions and soil and water degradation improvements do play a role.

It will recommend a shift to plant-based foods representing a much higher proportion of the food eaten by Canadians. It will not recommend, it says reassuringly, cutting meat out of one's daily diet altogether; just that it be eaten far less frequently and with a conscious approach. Less red meat (beef, pork, lamb and goat) and replacing saturated fat-containing cream, high fat cheese, butter, etc. To consider replacements such as nuts, seeds, avocados.

Nuts, seeds and avocados can be good sources of omega 3 fatty acids. morisfoto/Getty images

Dr. Mente of McMaster University's Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology trial study found a high intake of fat protected people from early deaths, and he is not enamoured of the approach that Health Canada is preparing for, in issuing its new recommendations; less than 10 percent of saturated fat intake, when Dr. Mente's trial found 35 percent intake to be ideal. That same study also found a moderate intake of fruits, vegetables and legumes was ideal, not the emphasis that Health Canada is placing on increasing that intake.

Health Canada's Hasan Hutchinson pointed to evidence that dietary patterns such as those modelled after the Mediterranean diet emphasizing vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and fish and less red meat; refined grains and sugars to be linked with lower risks of cardiovascular disease. And according to Dr. Jenkins, who is also a scientist at St. Michael's Hospital, those few studies that have been carried out in nutrition support moving to an increased reliance on plant-based diets.

He points to the controlled research of the 2013 PREDIMED study reporting that supplementing the Mediterranean diet with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts had the result of a 30 percent reduction in risk of cardiovascular disease, in comparison with the results of a low-fat diet. A finding that the more recent study under the aegis of McMaster University contradicted.

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