CDA Essentials 2019 • Volume 7 • Issue 2

N ews and E vents 16 | 2019 | Issue 2 NewCanada FoodGuide Connects Oral Health and General Health “The Canadian Dental Association (CDA) applauds this new and improved Food Guide. This new Guide offers helpful information to Canadians that aligns well with our current knowledge of healthy diets. In particular, we appreciate the guidance to replace sugary drinks with water, to limit sugar in general, and to be aware of the impact of food marketing,” said Dr. Mitch Taillon, CDA president, in a statement shared with the Minister of Health’s office. The new Guide calls attention to the fact that oral diseases share common nutrition-related risk factors with some of the leading chronic diseases in Canada, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In recent years, CDA has pushed for a more user-friendly Food Guide that provides better guidance about sugar consumption. Evidence of CDA’s ongoing advocacy efforts can be seen in other areas of the new Guide, such as a caution on eating dried fruit and the omission of citrus from the list of flavour enhancers for water. How has the Food Guide changed? To develop the new Guide, Health Canada followed a “rigorous scientific process to review the best available evidence. In developing its recommendations, Health Canada considered only high-quality scientific reports from respected authorities, such as the World Health The newCanada Food Guide is getting a lot of attention for breaking with the conventional food groups and serving sizes that were staples in previous iterations. Placing an emphasis on plant-based eating and protein sources and making water the drink of choice, Canada’s new Food Guide was informed by research and aims to revamp not only what we eat, but how we eat in an effort to curb cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Photos: Government of Canada