TIM BELFORD

Canada's Food Guide turns 60

The Canada Food Guide has been around for sixty years. It was originally called "Health Canada's Official Food Rules."

It came out in 1942 and was designed to ensure a war-time nation was eating a well-balanced, healthy diet -- It being difficult to fight on an empty stomach and all that. It was also difficult since food was rationed and if you didn't have your own victory garden, it was difficult to top up on leafy greens.

And although it's gone through several alterations since then - today it's actually called "Canada's Good Guide to Healthy Eating" - it's still the most widely accepted dietary advice anywhere. Mind you, it lacks the panache of some of the new, trendy diets that can be found on the shelves of any book store.

You won't be encouraged to take pounds off those flabby thighs by eating nothing but red meat and broccoli. And you'll find grapefruit in Canada's Guide but not for six meals a day. No, the stress here is on balance. Sort of a dietary twist on the ancient Greeks' "golden mean."

just a quick scan of the suggested daily intake though gives you a pretty good idea why Canadians during the war were part of a national, lean, mean, fighting machine. When they say you can have a little bit of everything they mean just that - a little bit. Canada's food guide to healthy eating suggests you have one portion of fish, poultry, or beef for supper. A portion in this instance is between fifty and one hundred grams.

Now, if you are having a hard time picturing one hundred grams, think of a portion of prime rib that will fit comfortably in the palm of a four-year-old child's hand.

For a snack they suggest a cube of low-fat cheese. The cube should be about the same size as one of the dice they use at a Vegas crap table.

One of the luncheon suggestions is a ham sandwich consisting of onion, lettuce, mustard and two ounces of lean ham on a bagel. Mind you, covering a bagel with two ounces of ham would mean the meat in question would have to be about the same thickness as Saran Wrap.

The best suggestion is actually a tuna sandwich using one third of a can of water-packed tuna on two pieces of whole-wheat bread. Along with this you can also have as many cucumber slices as you desire - which would likely be about seven hundred.

The solution to the tiny portions in Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating is obviously to eat the entire recommended number of daily portions, however small. Ideally you should have 5 to 12 servings of grain products, 2 to 4 dairy, 5 to 10 fruits and veggies and 2-3 servings of meat and alternatives. If you opt for the upper level, that's 29 portions of food a day. Even at one hundred grams a pop it's enough to keep you going for about six meals.

Anyway, Canada's Good Guide to Healthy Eating has been around for sixty years and who can argue with success?