First aboriginal food guide balances traditional, practical

Bannock, berries, wild game and canned milk are part of a new version of Canada's Food Guide, created specifically for First Nations, Inuit and Mtis.

"With this guide, First Nations, Inuit and Mtis will have a tool to make more informed choices and nurture a healthy future by building on the traditions and values of a proud past and present," Federal Health Minister Tony Clement said after unveiling the new food guide at a Yellowknife school Wednesday.

It's the first time Canada's Food Guide has been tailored to meet any specific ethnic cultures in Canada, Clement said.

"In the previous version of the food guide, there had been some efforts to particularize it, but it was not really a national project," he said. "What we did in this version is to make it as part of a national project to really focus in on Inuit, Mtis and First Nations populations and make sure we've covered that angle better than we've done in the past."

Like the standard guide, the aboriginal version shows how many servings people of varying age groups can choose from each of the four food groups every day, along with explanations on how much food makes a serving.

Some culturally specific examples of single servings include:

• Leafy vegetables and wild plants:125 millilitres, cooked; 250 millilitres, raw.
• Berries:125 millilitres.
• Bannock:35 grams (a piece about five by five by 2.5 centimetres).
• Traditional meats and wild game: 75 grams, cooked.

The guide also lists canned milk and canned and frozen fruit and vegetables as practical alternatives to fresh milk and produce in remote communities, Whitehorse nutritionist Laura Salmon said.

"They might be the only options seeing as fresh fruit doesn't often survive that well on their long travels to the northern communities," she said.

Lori Doran, a senior adviser with Health Canada and one of the project leads on the new food guide, said Wednesday that the idea is to introduce the guide at reserve schools and health facilities.

"We really want to get it into the hands of people at the community level, and what we're hoping is that this food guide is used in a variety of ways," Doran said.

"We hope that individuals, families, communities use the food guide. We also hope that it's used in other settings like in schools to develop policies around foods to serve in the cafeterias, for example."

Low-income families still face hurdles

Health Canada sees the guide as one tool to help reduce such health problems as obesity and diabetes, which are widespread in First Nations communities.

But Marie Martin, a nurse at the Kwanlin Dun Health Centre in Whitehorse, said while the newguide is a start toward helping First Nations move to healthier futures, there will still be hurdles in getting people especially those on low or fixed incomes to follow the guide.

Take fresh fruit, for example, she said. "If you're feeding a family of four and you're on a fixed income, you know, you tend to put those back in and go and get the canned fruit."

First Nations groups and nutrition experts were involved in producing the guide with the federal government. The original Canada's Food Guide, which has existed since 1942, was revamped in February.