OTTAWA—A Conservative senator who helped craft a report on the country’s obesity crisis is cheering the federal government’s plan to overhaul the Canada Food Guide, but wants Health Canada taken to task for what he considers flawed dietary advice.
Sen. Kelvin Ogilvie, chair of a Senate committee that spent more than a year examining the obesity issue, said the review needs to address what he considers obvious problems, such as characterizing fruit juice as a healthy food choice.
“When you take a glass of squeezed orange juice as the equivalent of roughly the sugar of five oranges in a single glass, that is obscene,” Ogilvie said in an interview on Monday, Oct. 24, after Health Minister Jane Philpott unveiled the proposed changes.
“Using an example like fruit juices as an example of a healthy diet is simply wrong.”
Philpott used a key policy speech in Montreal to announce that Health Canada is launching consultations on revamping the venerable food guide—an exercise whose success needs to be measured in actions, not words, Ogilvie said.
