Debugging the Food Guide

July 8th, 2018
This website is contradictory and the facts are not as clear as they should be.
"Grain products are the main way we get energy:"
Can you tell me since when?
Since Canada was colonized, surely.
This Food Guide is hideously out-of-date and must be updated immediately. It's no wonder people are getting sick - parts of this flyer are just plain old bad advice. Someone please tell me what traditional country wheat exists?

UNhealthy recipe:Sweet and Sour Seal Stirfry
1/2 cup sugar? Who made up this recipe, McDonalds? Look at some real Chinese recipes. They use 1 tbsp at most because not everyone can handle more sugar than that.
Where is sugar on the Food Guide?
Answer: it isn't there.
So why is so much of it in a "Healthy" recipe? Stir fried seal sounds great, but how can you eat 1/2 cup of sugar everyday?
How long does it take eating 1/2 c of sugar before you get diabetes? Will it be when you're 60? 50? Maybe 40, if you like this UNhealthy seal stir-fry a lot.

We have to review how much sense it makes to combine traditional foods with untraditional foods. We expect to eat traditional food such as seal everyday. Sugar and exotic fruits are not everyday foods. This recipe is not practical.

Overall, this food guide is fraught with untraditional foods. Sugar, wheat, even oranges. Who doesn't love an orange? Well oranges aren't nearly as unhealthy as wheat and sugar are, but they are not always the most convenient fruit. Hey, Nunavut Dept. of Health, how many people in Nunavut have enough oranges that they can make a seal stir fry everyday? Has anyone ever made it?

We wouldn't be able to eat most of these recipes. In fact, they don't seem much healthier than fast food; a can is in almost every recipe(Just add 1 can (10 oz) condensed tomato soup, 1 can (12 oz)evaporated milk).

Hang on, Dept of Health, weren't you going on about how bad butter is, and now you are recommended processed and canned dairy products? Wanna remind us what's so unhealthy about butter again?

Some like to say it clogs arteries. We have new information now. According to Dr Lustig, animal fats have no impact whatsoever on heart disease[1].

The "healthy" recipes we can't eat are: Creamy Noodles with beef,Sweet and Sour Seal Stirfry,Basic Muffins,Classic Tuna Noodle Casserole,Speedy Pan Rolls,Hearty Chili,Tea biscuits.

That's 7 recipes out of 12 we wouldn't dare touch even if Grandma made it on the 2015-2016 list alone.

Another recipe (Hearty Chili) uses many cans of food, high in sugar content. Again, ask yourself, is it traditional diet to eat sugar? How long before we get diabetes?
The recipe calls for: 1 can (14 oz)beans in tomato sauce,1 can (19 oz), kidney beans, 1 can (12 oz)corn. More starch, carbs and sugar where it isn't needed.

It's not only not economical to buy canned beans instead of dry, it's unhealthy.

This "Tea Biscuits" baked goods recipe calls for "1 cup oil (or melted margarine)".
Excuse me, margarine recommended by the Dept of Health? Have you read what hydrogenated fats do to your endoplasmic reticulum membrane? It make the strings stiff and unable to catch passing nutrients, on every cell in our bodies[2]. In other words, your body is less able to absorb nutrients. This has a cumulative effect, it worsens with age.

Suggested recipe themes for the 2018 recipe series: traditional food, contemporary and traditional food (with healthy new-world foods), On-the-land food (free or cheap local foods). Let's hope the 2018 recipe list is much better than the 2015-2016 one. In fact, let's delete the list now and pretend it never happened. 2012-2013 was almost practical. Some of the titles even made my tummy rumble. After looking at the 2015-2016 list, I ask, what happened?

Lustig explains how simple carbs contribute to chronic disease.

This "Cheesy Baked Omelette" recipe is an excellent recipe. However, The picture does not reflect the wholesome, healthy ingredients used. Surrounding the Omelette, in the center of the picture, is processed wheat simple carb, empty-calories bread. It's almost the feature in this picture. There's more of this "bread" sponge substance as there is Omelette in this picture. I can barely even see the omelette.

This recipe, "Chicken with Rice and Peas" provided temporary relief, for a moment. Recipe looks good, moderately healthy, maybe a bit too much simple carb rice but everything else looks perfectly okay. Even the picture has got it right this time!
Hang on, what's that text in small letters above the picture? "Served with canned peaches". Suddenly the relief has faded; like I said, it was only temporary.

Let's take a look at how much sugar is in canned peaches. A 1-cup serving of peaches in heavy syrup contains 160 calories and 32.55 grams of sugar. Opt for peaches canned in light syrup, and you will decrease the calories to 136, but you will increase the sugar content to 33.26 grams per 1-cup serving.Aug 14, 2011[3]

Question to Dept of Health: Would you put candy on the Food Guide for your people?

Perhaps you would answer "no". We should hope so, while claiming to be healthy and all. But then, why would you then prescribe a food so high in sugar?

Pizza. With 2 and 1/2 cups of processed, simple carbs.

Update Nov 1, 2018
The Heavy Toll of Empty Calories: Nutrition as a Focus for Inuit Health
John Hopkins

References

[1]Lustig heart disease
[2]NIH Endoplasmic Reticulum Membrane and Dietary Fats
[3]Sugar in Peaches | https://www.livestrong.com/article/518457-sugar-in-peaches/

country food

This article, "Country Foods" describes country foods and store-bought foods.

It seems to be missing quite a bit of details. Let's get into that, shall we?

With information gleaned from NIH, Dr Brian Sparkes, and Dr Robert Lustig, and others, we can explain country food on a molecular level.

The Dept of Health says:

"Fats in sea animals have many benefits. Whales, seal, char and walrus have high amounts of healthy fats. These fats are not like the fats in store-bought meat like bacon, bologna, deli meats and hamburger. Store-bought meats and fats like lard, shortening and butter contribute to heart disease and stroke."

It's much more complex than just that. Did you think lard was always "store-bought"? For some people on this earth, it is a country food, as is butter.

Let's forget figuring out which animal's fats are healthy, and focus on what types of fats are healthy.

Marine animals have higher concentrations of Omega-3. This is the healthy fat we all know and love. However, marine animals often have a small amount of Omega-6, what we often refer to as "animal fats".
According to NIH director and Dr Sparkes, the endoplasmic reticulum membrane of our cells absolutely requires a certain amount of Omega-3s to function properly. Once it's met this level and is functioning, Omega-6 can be eaten without any adverse effects.

As NIH director explains here, fats such as trans- or hydrogenated-fats destroy the cell membrane's ability to function.

Why, we ask, does Dept of Health recommend using margarine, a hydrogenated, cell-membrane disabling fat?

These animal fats do not contribute to heat disease. Here's the top heart disease doctor saying it:. And here's another top doctor explaining it:. This may make you start to wonder, "How much medical training and education did the person have who came up with this Dept of Health website"?

There is no plant called Canola, it's rapessed oil, which is poisonous. To eat it we have to denature it using heat. This turns the oil into trans fats.

The recommendation of a oil exposed to high heat, which changes the molecular structure and impacts our cell membranes negatively, begs the question again. " refined using high heat, pressure, and toxic petroleum solvents such as hexane, which is known to cause nerve damage in humans. "[1] Canola is essentially a processed food product.

Canola:
NutritionData's Opinion
Weight loss: Less than 1/2 a Star out of 5 Stars
Optimum health: 1 and 1/2 Stars out of 5 Stars
Weight gain: 2 and 1/2 Stars out of 5 Stars[2]

NUTRIENT BALANCE INDICATOR�
This symbol offers a visual representation of a food's nutritional strengths and weaknesses, with each spoke representing a different nutrient. The spoke for dietary fiber is colored green, protein is blue, vitamins are purple, minerals are white, and yellow represents a group of commonly overconsumed nutrients: saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium.

A Completeness Score between 0 and 100 is a relative indication of how complete the food is with respect to these nutrients.

Canola oil has a Completeness Score of 6 out of 100.

It also has an Amino Acid Score of 0 out of 100.

That's only the beginning of the zeros. Canola oil is so nutritionally devoid, it has trace amounts of 2 nutrients out of 22 Vitamins and Minerals.

What it does have a lot of is Omega-6. Remember that big, bad fatty acid that was used a boogeyman? We know Omega-6 isn't inherently harmful, and we know that an imbalance of Omega fatty acids is; maybe even as bad as highly processed, heat-treated oils.

Canola oil has 17,917 mg of Omega-6 per 100 grams, and a relatively lower amount of Omega-3 at 6397 mg per 100 grams.

According to The Dept of Health claim "marine fats good" and "animal fats bad", canola oil is unhealthy containing high amounts of Omega-6, much like animal meat.

References

[1] Canola History https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/the-inconvenient-truth-about-canola-oil
[2]Canola Nutrition http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/7946/2#ixzz5Kg0prHwZ
[3] The OILING of AMERICA by Sally Fallon & Mary G. Enig, PhD

store bought

Under vegetables, the claim is made:"They are high in vitamins and minerals which help our bodies heal and keep our eyes and skin healthy. The other food groups do not have very much of these".

We would like to refute that last sentence. The idea that only vegetables have nutrition is dangerous for a region where vegetables are often 1) hard to get, 2) scarce, 3) expensive, and 4) not at peak freshness.

"Other food groups" might include meat and fish, which we know are nutrient-dense, especially traditional Inuit foods such as seal. In fact, sorted by highest amount of nutrient-containing food on the FDA Nutrition Data website shows many of traditional foods have the highest amount of nutrients, more than any other foods.

See Selenium - Sea Lion Liver, Omega-3 - Seal, Vitamin C - Beluga and others.

Next it says "Grain products are the main way we get energy:"
That sentence is so nonsensical and makes a huge claim with no supporting evidence and begs the question "Why do we eat meat then?" and "How did my grainless ancestors have no energy and continue to survive?" but let's put that aside that for now and look at the next sentence.

"The healthiest grains are �whole grains� like whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, large flake oats and brown rice."

Oats and brown rice are one of the few things we found to not make us sick, in moderation. The brown rice has the hull intact, giving extra fiber and so digesting healthier than simple-carb white rice. We are glad to see a glimmer of a little bit of sense appear in this website.

If we can agree brown rice is a bit better for health than white rice, why is the Dept of Health recommending recipes using white rice?

This recipe, "Quick Fried Rice" calls for brown or white rice. Why bother recommending white rice after claiming its less healthy? Motivations for accuracy in this flyer seem lacking. A seal stew recipe shows very white-looking rice, and doesn't specify to use brown rice.

This recipe, "Chicken with Rice and Peas" also doesn't specify brown rice to be used, but points out peas are high in fiber. Why doesn't it mention brown rice here as well?

This stirfry recipe shows the whitest rice ever seen.
There is not one recipe on this site that shows and recommends very cleary use of brown rice.
This is only one grain on their list.

The inconsistency of the information here is alarming. How do we trust our health to an institution that doesn't appear to care enough to at least get their facts straight and use their own advice?