Health Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

You mentioned that you had forwarded a copy of some documents, I believe to this committee but I wasn't sure to whom--you said a number of individuals--in November 2005, which were draft copies of the food guide?

[Mary Bush]

That was a part of our consultation. In fact, we had an online consultation, which was also supported by regional meetings.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Wonderful. Could we have that tabled again along with your post-consultation draft guide?

[Mary Bush]

Okay. You've asked for that, and it's on its way, because it's left our--

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Do you have any hesitation about the minister's forwarding of it to this committee?

[Mary Bush]

I would say this. We are on a very tight timeframe.

[An hon. member]

Why?

[Mary Bush]

Why? The issue is very much that this has been under way. We are being asked regularly for it.

I would just like to tip the balance here a little here in terms of consultation and what you've heard. I used the sodium example earlier, and I'll repeat it. Sodium--

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Is there another good example? Is there anything else that perhaps you could enlighten the committee on in terms of a different example, aside from energy? We've heard that. Is there anything else?

[Mary Bush]

Help me, guys. Is there another piece here?

We heard that we weren't doing a good enough job at giving direction to Canadians around their choice of fats--here's a good one, their choice of fats. We heard that, we've gone back, we've really tightened that up, and we've really gone through a comprehensive process that has actually allowed people who care about this to speak to us about what they care about.

We've listened. We've taken the next step. We're ready to go forward. You've had a few people come to this committee who had said this consultation didn't work for them. There was nothing stopping any one of them from going, pen to paper, to us with what they felt about any aspect of this food guide--and indeed, we had many people who did. So people who care about this process, people who wanted to say something to this department, had all kinds of opportunity to do so. It was up to people to take that up and execute it.

When I look down at what we were preparing for you to come forward, I see hundreds of people who were consulted on this, hundreds of people with whom we actually met physically. We did more outreach on this consultation than we've done in the history of the food guide, going province to province, place to place, and enabling people, in online consultation, to input to us. So without a moment's pause or hesitation, I'm sorry if there are people who felt that it didn't work for them, but there are many people who provided us with very rigorous and solid input, which we are greatly appreciative of.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm glad that you mentioned that example, following Dr. Dhalla's question about whether there was anything else. You went from sodium to energy to fats, and that's where I want to ask a question.

This is from our friend Dr. Freedhoff. You didn't seem to agree with his opinion, but he's currently attending the Obesity Society annual meeting in Boston, and he asked Dr. Walter Willett, who is the chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, to review the document.

One of his comments that came in an e-mail directed just yesterday from the society meeting was this, and it relates to fats, “Like the U.S. guidelines, the draft Canadian document is still fat phobic. There's a suggestion to use a very limited amount of vegetable oils, but there are recommendations to reduce or avoid fat in general, when it's really trans fat and partially hydrogenated food that should be totally avoided, and saturated fat that should be limited. The main message should be to replace trans and saturated fat with unsaturated fat.”

So as much as you've heard from people about fats, did this consideration work its way into the final draft?

[Mary Bush]

Absolutely. I can say that, absolutely. I actually reviewed what you received, and I thought, isn't this interesting? There is nothing here that's a surprise. There's nothing here that would cause me a moment's pause.

Part of this is how one puts this all together. Let me just give you two examples, because the fat phobic comment is really something where I can tell you categorically that what we know is that it's the type of fat that really matters for cardiovascular disease. Fat, in terms of what it contributes to the diet, also contributes a lot of energy, so it's an important piece in terms of caloric management.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

They're not all bad.

[Mary Bush]

Absolutely, they're not all bad, which is why we actually have an amount of essential fatty acids, and fats and oils, included in our pattern. But when we focus on fat and reduced fat in dairy and meat, what we're doing is attacking saturated fat. That's what that's about.

When we go into grain products and we focus on foods that are low in fat in grain products, that's directly on the trans fats.

It's not that we're not using these words. In fact, one of the things we do is take advantage of one of the most important public health tools this country has created, in the form of the nutrition facts panel on all foods. We say it's important when you're choosing foods. The quality of foods and the energy that your foods bring is absolutely essential. So what you do is look at your food label and take seriously saturated fat and trans fat.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you. I'm glad to hear that's included.

I have one last question here, while I still have a moment.

There is another issue he raised, which you'd probably be aware of since you've seen the document. That is the issue related to high dairy intake. He's concerned that we're still recommending fairly high dairy intake in the draft that he saw. He said, “It would not be a major issue if it were clearly safe; however, the U.S. guidelines completely ignored a very substantial body of data showing increased risk of aggressive and fatal prostate cancer with high dairy consumption. Also, studies have found increased risks of ovarian cancer with high dairy consumption.”

Have we addressed the high dairy recommendations that were in the draft document?

[Mary Bush]

Let me start, and Danielle can pick up on this, because I found it very interesting. I actually asked what's high? What exactly is high?

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I think he said three glasses a day.

[Mary Bush]

Three glasses a day. I would actually then say to you that I went back to our nutritional epidemiologist, who has done work on looking at the relationship between chronic disease and health outcomes. We actually went through what was said in the two major reports that we looked at. What has happened and been said since then, and what are the real risks?

This is where you have to weigh the risks. You weigh the risks of potentially evolving evidence around prostate cancer and ovarian cancer. You certainly never want to put out a pattern of eating that's going to increase the risks. You weigh it against the need for nutrients that are brought to you by some of the foodstuff.

We actually had somebody go through to do a review this morning, based on those quick notes that came to us. I feel very confident that the pattern we're putting forward absolutely does not create a risk for either of those diseases.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

On the concern you raised on the three glasses a day, following the perspective study, a 25% increase in ovarian cancer, with a lactose intake equivalent of three glasses of milk per day, might be of concern to us. You could maybe get the calcium from another source, if that's what we're looking for in milk.

[Mary Bush]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Mr. Fletcher.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to make a comment on Ms. Dhalla's suggestion.

I think we have to be careful in that there's the old saying that a camel is a racehorse designed by committee. I would be concerned we could end up with a food guide that has more pages than the Library of Parliament if we bring it to committee.

As a government, we have delegated the responsibility to Health Canada to produce this guide. I'm not necessarily opposed, but I am concerned about what could happen if we tabled a guide and then tried to come up with a guide ourselves. My goodness, can you even imagine what those meetings would be like?

I only want to make sure everyone understands that concern. Perhaps there are other ways to meet your concern but also meet the objective of getting a food guide out in a timely manner.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you.

Madam Gagnon.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

I’d like to ask two short questions. First, I’d like to know the cost of Canada’s Food Guide.

Second, Ms. Bush, you told us that you used the body mass index to determine a person’s degree of obesity.

Shouldn’t we be using waist size to determine whether someone is obese or not? That’s what Dr. Després says, and he’s an expert in the field.

You see that my questions are short.