[upbeat music]
What do I have for breakfast today?
Let's see...
orange juice, milk, and water.
Which one should I choose?
Until a few days ago, any of these things
would have been fine. But then...
Health Canada released a new food guide,
and two of these things were dropped from the menu.
So why did Health Canada make this change?
The Canada Food Guide is more than just
a colourful page: it's truly a powerful resource.
It might be hard to believe,
but the last time that the food guide was updated,
there was no such thing as an iPhone.
And can any of us here even imagine
a time without an iPhone?
While previous food guides were static documents,
this one is truly different.
It will continue to be updated with the latest
dietary knowledge over the coming years.
The government has its reasons for making
the change, but I'm not sure that I get
all the science behind it.
I decided to visit a nutrition expert to find out
more about why Canada has lost its taste
for juice and milk.
Come on, let's go inside.
Let's talk about juice.
In the old food guide, half a cup of 100 per cent
fruit juice was one serving of fruit and veggies.
Now, it's not there at all.
What do you think?
I think that's a positive change.
So with juice, it contains so much sugar,
actually equivalent to pop,
and you're missing out on some of the nutrients from
the whole fruit or vegetable, like fiber.
So I think we need to focus on getting in
the whole fruit instead of in juice form.
How many teaspoons of sugar are there
in a glass of juice and how many vitamins are there?
A juice box would consist of about six teaspoons
of sugar, so quite a bit.
Equivalent to a small can of pop.
In terms of vitamins, it does contain vitamin C,
but that's about it and it's easy to find vitamin C
in real fruits and veggies, too.
Lower fat milk is in the protein category,
alongside lower fat yogurts and lower fat cheeses.
But it no longer has its own section.
What was your reaction to this?
Well, I think especially for kids your age,
it's going to be hard to meet calcium needs without
focusing on milk, dairy, or fortified alternatives.
How else can kids and teens get their calcium?
So we can get calcium through lots of different foods.
Leafy greens have calcium in them,
although I know not a favourite of most kids.
Broccoli has calcium, although you'd need to eat
18 cups of it to get the 1300 miligrams
that you need per day.
Tofu and almonds, so you need to eat about five cups
of each of those to get the 1300 miligrams.
So calcium is widely distributed through
the diet, but in fairly small amounts.
How many glasses of milk in a day is too much?
I'd say over four cups would be overdoing it.
Thank you so much for telling me more
about the science behind the new food guide.
Thanks for having me.
[music]
So what if I told you that Canada no longer
recommends milk and juice and now the suggested
beverage of choice is water?
What would your reaction be to that?
That makes sense because juice is unhealthy,
and I don't really understand what's wrong
with milk, but juice definitely should be
off the charts.
Well there's water, probably the best sort of
beverage you can have, because it doesn't have
any fat, doesn't have any sugar,
it's just water.
What if you had to eat 15 cups of broccoli
to get your daily amount of calcium?
Um...I would say that it might be a lot easier
to drink milk, but I don't mind broccoli,
so I'll eat it.
Now, what would you say if I told you that a glass of juice
and a glass of pop had the same amount of sugar?
Wow, I never knew that, actually.
i feel like it's very unhealthy and we were lied to
that it was a healthy drink to be able to bring
to school and all those things that people would
drink for the healthiness, but it's actually not.
CBC Kids News wants to know what you think.
How will Canada's new food guide
change the way that you eat?
Are you ready to say goodbye to juice
and stop drinking quite so much milk?
Email us at cbckidsnews@cbc.ca.
For CBC Kids News, I'm Alexia Sabau in Calgary.