Collaborative Proposal Creation
Create, improve and sponsor proposals in a respectful, fully bilingual environment. Grow proposals in the "Hothouse", for promotion to the "Workshop", to become official GPC policy.
- Proposal text
- The GPC fully and unequivocally supports the recommendations of Canada’s Food Guide 2019, particularly its emphases on consuming largely plant-based diets; addressing issues of nutritious food access and food insecurity affecting low-income, immigrant, and Indigenous people; increasing food skills and food literacy; and considering the environmental impacts of food choices.
- Type of Proposal
- Public policy that the party would represent
- Objective / Benefit
- Objective This initiative will bring the party’s food and health policies in line with evidence-based nutrition, correct the previous platform’s statement in support of dairy, and will further commitments to environmental sustainability, to social justice in general, and to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in particular. Benefit Adopting this initiative will strengthen the Green Party of Canada’s commitment to science-based policy, and will substantively further its commitment to supporting the health of Canadians; to decreasing healthcare costs; to alleviating inequities facing low-income, immigrant, and Indigenous people; and to reducing environmental degradation.
- If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
- Add to current GPC policy 1998 - Agriculture.
- List any supporting evidence for your proposal
- 1. American Medical Association. Culturally Responsive Dietary and Nutritional Guidelines. https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/D-440.978?uri=%2FAMADoc%2Fdirectives.xml-0-1522.xml 2. Canadian pharmacists journal. "Canada's new Healthy Eating Strategy: Implications for health care professionals and a call to action." https://doi.org/10.1177/1715163519834891 3. Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada. Submission to SOCI regarding Bill S-228[...] https://sencanada.ca/content/sen/committee/421/SOCI/Briefs/ChronicDiseasePreventionAlliance_e.pdf 4. Should dairy be recommended as part of a healthy vegetarian diet? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19321571/ 5. Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine. “Doctors Call on Dietary Guidelines to Ditch Dairy to Fight Racial Health Disparities.” https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/doctors-call-dietary-guidelines-ditch-dairy-fight-racial-health-disparities
- Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
- N/A
- Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
- Yes
- Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
- English
Amendments (1)
Amendment
Evaluating
Proposal Title:Science-Based Food Policy: Selective Support of the 2019 Canada Food GuideProposal...
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Created at
23/02/2024 -
- 1
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Reference: PVC-PROP-2023-08-4147
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Conversation with Lorna Hillman
I support this proposal and was very disappointed in the last AGM policy proposals where the Canada Food Guide was shot down by those who vehemently subscribe to a total vegan diet. This completely ignores the huge carbon foot print in growing nuts like almonds and cashew which use a tremendous amount of water and then need to be transported to countries like Canada for consumption because they can't be grown here. This is but one example of of the the types of foods required to sustain a healthy vegan diet in a northern clime.
Industrial farming of animal based-foods and the over-consumption of them is the culprit not the foods themselves. I think the Canada Food Guide strikes a reasonable balance. BTW people with diabetes and other endocrine health issues could never live on a vegan diet that is primarily carbohydrate-based. We have to be aware that one diet does not fit all.
In your post you say that diabetics could "never live on a vegan diet". The Canadian Diabetes Association website has a 7-day vegan healthy meal plan, so it would appear they believe diabetics can be healthy on a vegan diet. Perhaps one diet does indeed fit all!
Diabetic Vegan Meal Plan: https://www.diabetes.ca/nutrition---fitness/meal-planning/7-day-vegan-healthy-meal-plan
Yes!
A good vegan diet is better than a good non-vegan diet. With processed food and individual choices one can of course consume a vegan diet of absolute trash, but then at least the only animal being harmed would be the human consuming the junk food, and it would have a lighter environmental footprint.
Here's the current position statement of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets
It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes. Plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable than diets rich in animal products because they use fewer natural resources and are associated with much less environmental damage. Vegetarians and vegans are at reduced risk of certain health conditions, including ischemic heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity. Low intake of saturated fat and high intakes of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products, nuts, and seeds (all rich in fiber and phytochemicals) are characteristics of vegetarian and vegan diets that produce lower total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and better serum glucose control. These factors contribute to reduction of chronic disease. Vegans need reliable sources of vitamin B-12, such as fortified foods or supplements.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886704/
According to the Dairy Farmers of Canada, it takes 25 L of water to make 1 L of dairy milk. Oat milk, which uses the least water among the plant-based milks, requires 48 L of water per 1 L of oat milk. If these numbers are truthful, then shouldn't the GPC actually be encouraging dairy milk over plant-based milks for using less water?
https://dairyfarmersofcanada.ca/en/canadian-goodness/ask-dairy-experts/how-much-water-do-dairy-farms-use-or-re-use (Reference for 25 L)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/oat-milk-trend-benefiting-saskatchewan-canada-1.5325171 (Reference for 48 L)
If those numbers were truthful then yes, they're not though.
Dairy milk requires more land, more water, creates more GHGs and manure pollution.
Plus it's cruel to the animals to forcibly impregnate them, steal their babies, and subject them to a life of reproductive slavery.
This is a good overview of dairy compared to plant milks: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks
Here's a news article showing that dairy cows cry when their babies are stolen from them, all mothers love their babies. https://www.newburyportnews.com/news/local_news/strange-noises-turn-out-to-be-cows-missing-their-calves/article_d872e4da-b318-5e90-870e-51266f8eea7f.html
And here's a more recent one with goats crying for the same reason: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/quadra-island-rcmp-mysterious-screaming-1.7029695
Dairy is environmentally unsustainable and cruel.
Hi Lorna,
I've been vegan since 2018, I co-created and run the FB page https://www.facebook.com/GPC.SupportersForAPlantBasedFoodSystem and IG page: https://www.instagram.com/gpc_4_pb_foodsystem/
I was part of a group writing a policy similar to this with the last AGM policy proposals when we found another group who was further ahead than we were so we instead supported their policy.
I just want to correct a misconception, it was vegans who suggested the Canadian Food Guide at the last AGM, not vegans who shot it down.
The Canadian Food Guide is not vegan, but it recommends more plants than Canadians currently consume. Some highlights from the guidelines for policymakers are:
- Cardiovascular disease is a serious public health concern in Canada. Almost 50% of deaths from cardiovascular disease were attributed to dietary risks in 2017. 7 Dietary risks include low intake of nutritious foods, such as vegetables and fruit. In Canada, vegetable and fruit intakes are consistently low.
- While many animal-based foods are nutritious, Guideline 1 emphasizes more plant-based foods. https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/guidelines/section-1-foundation-healthy-eating/
You may be interested in this link about plant milks and the amount of water use and land-use being less than dairy milk, as well as the lower GHG emissions and pollution from eutrophication. https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks.
You may also be interested in this summary of the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health diet. I'd specifically like to draw your attention to slide 15 showing that in 2018 in North America (Cdn stats not reported) we consumed 638% the amount of beef that is considered sustainable. We also consumed more dairy, eggs and chickens that sustainable as well. Since then we've increased our meat, egg and dairy consumption and we're losing more animals to climate events and infectious diseases like avian influenza. In the last 4 weeks we've "humanely depopulated" 5 million chickens in the Fraser Valley https://bc.ctvnews.ca/nearly-5-million-chickens-killed-due-to-avian-flu-in-b-c-1.6655710
You can see from this graph that we breed and kill so many chickens worldwide that you can hardly even see the increase in other animals that we're breeding and killing. ("Number of Animals Slaughtered" - 12th image down) https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
This systemic review of 500,000 people concluded that "we found that a vegan diet is associated with lower T2D prevalence or incidence and in T2D patients decreases high glucose values and improves glucose homeostasis, as reported from the majority of included studies." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8235036/
One diet does not fit all, and the current system is ableist and racist imposing dairy milk pollution in many foods. At my literacy level and commitment I still make mistakes, I couldn't imagine trying to be vegan and read labels with english as a 2nd language or other barrier.
Sorry, looks like I missed the link for the EAT-Lancet PPT
In addition to the graphic mentioned on slide 15 there's also a summary on slide 10 with a suggested caloric intake per day of different food items
https://www.anh-academy.org/sites/default/files/Ag2Nut%20EAT%20Lancet%20Commission%20Slides%20FINAL.pdf
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