New food guide good to read, hard to follow

The four food groups have come to an inglorious end.  

Everything I’ve known to be true about healthy eating was thrown out the window on Tuesday with the unveiling of Canada’s new food guide.  

There is no more dairy group. Forget it ever existed. (This is not a plot to destroy the Canadian dairy industry...) 

Dairy and meats, low-fat and lean, are now just one of many in the “protein foods” category. Like it or not, they now share the spotlight with beans and all the other “meat alternatives.” 

Remember learning about the alternatives? They sounded like an after-thought following a big helping of red meat. Perhaps some salted almonds after your meal? It’s all good, so long as you eat your meat. And drink your milk. Two glasses a day! 

It was only last year that my daughter, after becoming educated using the old food guide, started lecturing me on how many servings of grains I needed to eat every day. 

“But how much is a serving?” I asked her. 

She held out her hand, showing me visually that this is a serving – basically, whatever can fit in an 11-year-old's palm. 

The old food guide, which has not changed substantially since my birth year of 1977, told us how many servings we needed of everything. It was corrupted, we now learn, by the lobbying of various industries (ahem, beef and dairy), but you didn’t have to use much imagination to follow it. 

You needed 6-8 servings (i.e. handfuls) of grains a day, which could take the form of anything from cereal to bagels. Even my child knows a bagel has next to no nutritional value; we eat them because they taste good, particularly with cream cheese, which may have also qualified as a serving of dairy. 

The new food guide is much less prescriptive, which I applaud. It tries to keep things simple – half fruits and vegetables, and then the rest, namely protein foods and grains. Stay away from the processed foods, stick to whole grains when it comes to carbs, and don't overdo it on the fats (no, bacon is not a substitute for bagels).  

The new food guide: A plate of healthy wonder

The new guide encourages more plant-based foods in place of meat, which I think is shooting for the stars when it comes to the average (above average when it comes to weight) Canadian, but at least it’s speaking the truth. You can’t knock vegetables for nutritional value. 

It even broaches the topic of alcohol. Contrary to popular belief, wine is not a fruit! It’s not even good for you anymore. Alcohol makes you fat and drinking too much increases your risk of cancer. 

Even 100% real fruit juice is not a fruit. It’s a sugar-drink that contributes to dental decay, obesity and type-2 diabetes. Yikes! Hide the apple juice! 

Instead, drink plain old water. Who would’ve thought it could be so good for you? 

If only we knew about this when I was young.  Growing up, it was corn flakes and orange juice for breakfast, melt-in-your-mouth white-breaded peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch, then meat and potatoes for supper with corn on the side. What's so bad about that? As it turns out, um... almost everything? It wasn't our fault though – we were deceived.

The changes to the food guide were needed and long overdue. They're based on solid evidence and research that have existed for quite some time.  

Only one question remains: Will we follow them?

My first attempt to follow the new food guide (don't worry, those spring rolls are vegetarian)

Cutting cable no longer crazy

They tell me the first few days will be the hardest. If you can get through that first week, you’ll be okay.  

Try to occupy yourself with other things. Like reading. Or knitting. Or sticking your head outside for a few minutes (depending on the windchill). 

Starting next week, there will be no more live sports. No more Trump talking heads. No more channel surfing... The screen will be black. Well, not really, but more on that later. 

Cutting our cable isn't a New Year’s resolution, although it could be. It’s more of a money-saving exercise (yes, our promo ended), and a realization that TV is less important to us than it used to be. 

There was a time when cable was somewhat vital, when it would be the first thing we turned on after work. Friends at suppertime was a regular event. Reality TV was just emerging as a hot thing – who could resist the first few seasons of Survivor and, dare I say, The Apprentice? 

Starting a family and hosting a steady stream of boarders changed all that. We didn’t want to set a precedent of eating in front of the TV. Nevertheless, we enjoyed certain shows and kept the cable cords intact. 

Having not grown up with cable, I initially balked at the cost when I first started my cable subscription. Fifty bucks a month seemed like a gratuitous expense when I was earning so little. But over time, I became like most everyone else, accepting the cost as I would another utility payment.

Even the poorest of the poor have cable, I reasoned. There are people who struggle to buy groceries who have the full array of TV channels. Maybe because it’s their one form of comfort, but it offers an interesting perspective on what we view as essential in life.

Now I admit, cutting the cord today is not as sacrificial as it once was. Fifteen years ago, it would mean near entertainment blackout. Back then I really would have had to do something different with my time. Not so today. 

When I told my daughter we were done with cable TV, the first thing she asked was: “But you’re not cutting Netflix, are you?” At the age of 11, she can’t decipher between video streaming and “real TV,” and in the near future I’m sure there will be no difference. As my co-worker said, everything his kids need they can find on YouTube. 

The one thing we can't live without is the internet. We've become as dependent on WiFi as electricity. Without it, our Amazon Echo would become useless! Not to mention our smart TV, our laptop, phones... When the internet cuts out in our home, I kid you not, it’s DEFCON 1. This is a US military alert from the Cold War era signalling Nuclear War is Imminent; in modern times, the rough equivalent is: I can’t order what I need on Amazon! 

Really, we’re not giving up that much by cutting cable. We're not even saving that much on costs. We’re simply offsetting ever-growing internet and cell phone bills, not to mention online subscriptions for TV streaming, music, data storage and online news. 

We're in the internet-of-things era, and it's getting expensive. Is it any wonder that Apple, Facebook and Amazon are the largest companies in the world? 

With or without cable, our screens will never be black anymore. 

With or without cable, we will find our digital comfort.