Nutrition Month 2021 centres on the idea that healthy eating looks different for everyone. Dietitians will push back against simplified notions of a “healthy meal” and “rules” but rather offer examples of how culture, food traditions, health conditions, and personal circumstances can affect what your plate will look like. Dietitians recognize that people have their own culture, traditions, preferences and nutritional needs. This is integral when building a nutrition plan for their clients and patients. 

This years’ theme ties in with Canada's Food Guide. Canada’s Food Guide is designed to be flexible, relevant, and apply to all those who live in Canada. It promotes health and overall nutritional well-being, and does so by recognizing the diverse contexts within which we live. The food guide recommends a variety of healthy foods and acknowledges that there are many approaches to making healthy choices and cooking more often, which allows for more wholesome options, rather than picking up or having delivered processed or ready to eat foods. 

Recent evidence (read in the New Scientist, Sept. 2020 - Precision Nutrition) revealed that our response to food is highly individualized and that consequently there is not one diet that works for everyone. Studies have shown that people who eat the same meal have differing responses, as shown by their postprandial level of blood triglycerides, glucose, and insulin. This means that even some “bad foods” may not have bad effects for some individuals, and vice versa, that good foods don’t have the same good effect on all. It was noted, however, that these findings were shown in much smaller numbers compared to the norm.   

Moreover, even though dietitians and nutritionists may move away from generic nutrition recommendations, we are not going against the broadly accepted guidelines. These guidelines recommend that we should be eating a diverse diet with fibre-rich foods including vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes, a reasonable amount of good fats, a variety of proteins, and a limited amount of processed foods. These guidelines create the framework for a meal plan, while the individual preferences would be the details. These guidelines also pave the way for a plan that is, most importantly, sustainable. A sustainable meal plan eases your mind that what you’re eating is not a fad - it’s realistic, manageable, and successful. 

You can have all that and eat a little treat too :)