Health advocates want Food Guide overhaul as consultations conclude
OTTAWA — Health Canada is facing pressure from medical advocates to ensure there are major changes to its existing Food Guide as it works on highly anticipated dietary guidelines to be released early next year — a process that came a step closer to completion this week.
Consultations on the upcoming changes ended on Monday and the department now wants to assure the public it has taken steps to ensure the process is free of potential conflicts-of-interest.
Hasan Hutchinson, director general of nutritional policy and programs at Health Canada, acknowledges there has been a long-standing “perception” by some stakeholders and Canadians the last Food Guide was too influenced by industry.
“Whether that is real or perception is almost beside the point, because what we arrived at is the lack of confidence of Canadians and stakeholders in our dietary guidance, so what we did this time around is we controlled very, very strongly for that,” he said in an interview. “We don’t have any backroom meetings.”