CONSUMING QUANTIFICATION and RECIPES for RESISTANCE Digesting Canada’S Food Guide Elyse Amend
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CONSUMING QUANTIFICATION AND RECIPES FOR RESISTANCE Digesting Canada’s Food Guide Elyse Amend Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University, Montreal August 2017 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ©Elyse Amend 2017 Table of Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………….iv Résumé ……………………………………………………………………………………...........v List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………….............vii List of Tables ……………………………………………………………………………………ix Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………...x Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………...1 Chapter 1 ……………………………………………………………………………………….11 Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide: exploring the contingencies of healthy nutrition Chapter 2 ……………………………………………………………………………………….61 The Healthy Eater: defining healthy living Chapter 3 ……………………………………………………………………………………...104 The Confused Eater: consuming quantification, information, and responsibility Chapter 4 ……………………………………………………………………………………...136 My Food Guide, Their Food Guide: confronting dietary Others Chapter 5 ……………………………………………………………………………………...179 Learning how to eat Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………….228 Where to from here? Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………..243 Appendix 1 ………………………………………………………………………………….....254 Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide Appendix 2 ………………………………………………………………………………….....260 Access to Information request with Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (#A-2015-00654) Appendix 3 ………………………………………………………………………………….....262 Access to Information request with Health Canada (#A-2015-00260) Appendix 4 ………………………………………………………………………………….....265 Access to Information request with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (#A-2016-00129) Appendix 5 …………………………………………………………………………………….272 Participating Organizations at the Health Canada Consultation Meeting on the Revision of Canada’s Food Guide in Ottawa, Ontario on Nov. 24, 2005 ii Appendix 6 ………………………………………………………………………………….....275 Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Appendix 7 ………………………………………………………………………………….....278 Eating Well With Canada’s Food Guide: A Resource for Educators and Communicators iii Abstract Mainstream nutrition advice found in public health campaigns, educational settings, news articles, and countless other sources circulates quantitative discourses of food and eating with roots in early 20th century nutrition science. This top-down approach that “translates” nutrition for laypeople and provides tools to measure eating and its effects on the body, however, has been critiqued as abstract and difficult to apply in practice. A result of a “nutritionally confused environment” (Scrinis, 2008) is that the disempowered eater is positioned as lacking knowledge and in need of “expert” intervention to learn how to “eat right” and become “healthy.” This dissertation project studies how knowledge, expertise and power operate through nutrition guidance and policy in Canada. It investigates this by interrogating the institutional history of the state-mandated Canada’s Food Guide, with specific focus on the processes and decisions surrounding its most recent version, released in 2007. It also turns attention to how the guide and its dietary advice are mobilized pedagogically as an expert source in elementary and high school classrooms. This research applies a biopolitical frame to question how nutrition truth discourses and their technologies of surveillance function to produce “healthy Canadian” subjects. It also mobilizes Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) theory of discourse to explore how dominant discourses, or what some feminist nutrition scholars refer to as “hegemonic nutrition” (Hayes-Conroy, 2013), disseminate “common sense” ideas about eating that marginalize and exclude complex economic, political, ethical, and sociocultural issues tied to food. A main goal of this project is to contribute ideas about how dietary education and communication can move beyond scientific and quantifiable norms to address the complexities of nutrition and our relationships to food and eating to improve existing policies and approaches. iv Résumé Les conseils nutritionnels des campagnes de santé publique qui se retrouvent dans les médias traditionnels, dans des contextes éducationnels, dans les articles de nouvelles, et dans une panoplie d’autres sources, font circuler un discours quantitatif relatant à l’alimentation et la nourriture provenant de la science nutritionnelle du début du 20ième siècle. Cette approche descendante, qui ‘traduit’ ce qu’est la nutrition et offre un outil de mesure de l’alimentation et ses effets sur le corps, est critiquée comme étant abstraite et difficile à mettre en pratique. Ce qui a pour effet de créer un environnement nutritionnel déconcertant où le consommateur désemparé est considéré comme manquant de connaissance et requérant des interventions ‘d’experts’ pour apprendre à bien s’alimenter afin d’atteindre une santé idéale. Ce projet de dissertation met en lumière comment la connaissance, les experts et le pouvoir opèrent à travers les recommandations et stratégies nutritionnelles canadienne. Elle enquête cela en interrogeant l’histoire institutionnelle du guide alimentaire canadien mandaté par l’état, avec un focus particulier sur les processus et les décisions entourant sa plus récente version, publié en 2007. Une attention particulière est portée sur comment le guide et ses conseils diététiques sont utilisés pédagogiquement en tant que source représentant l’expertise dans les classes d’écoles primaires et secondaires. Cette recherche applique un cadre biopolitique afin de questionner la manière dont le discours de vérité nutritionnel et ses technologies de surveillance fonctionnent afin de produire des sujets canadiens en santé. De plus, elle utilise la théorie du discours de Laclau et Mouffe afin d’explorer comment les discours dominants, ou souvent appelés ‘nutrition hégémonique’ (Hayes-Conroy, 2013) par plusieurs érudites féministes en nutrition, disséminent les idées ayant du ‘bon sens’ concernant l’alimentation et qui contribue à marginaliser et exclure les problèmes complexes d’ordre économique, politique, éthique et socioculturel liés à la nourriture. Un des buts principaux de ce projet est de fournir des idées relativement à comment la communication et v l’éducation nutritionnelles peuvent outrepasser les normes scientifiques et quantifiables en exprimant les complexités de l’alimentation et nos relations vis-à-vis celle-ci afin d’améliorer les stratégies et les approches déjà existantes. vi List of Figures Figure 1 …………………………………………………………………………………………12 Nutrition Facts tables Figure 2 …………………………………………………………………………………………12 Canada’s Food Guide on the McDonald’s Canada website Figure 3 …………………………………………………………………………………………27 Recommended number of Food Guide Servings per day Figure 4 …………………………………………………………………………………………28 Directional statements in Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide Figure 5 …………………………………………………………………………………………29 How do I count Food Guide Servings in a meal? Figure 6 …………………………………………………………………………………………36 Meat and alternatives servings in 1992’s Canada’s Food Guide to Health Eating compared with 2007’s Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide Figure 7 …………………………………………………………………………………………39 “Choice” versus “Food Guide Serving” Figure 8 …………………………………………………………………………………………41 Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating’s rainbow cover (1992) Figure 9 …………………………………………………………………………………………42 Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide’s rainbow cover (2007) Figure 10 ………………………………………………………………………………………..48 Proposed “eat local” message for Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide Figure 11 ………………………………………………………………………………………..69 Canada’s Official Food Rules, 1942 Figure 12 ………………………………………………………………………………………..71 Canada’s Food Rules, 1944 Figure 13 ………………………………………………………………………………………..73 Canada’s Food Rules, 1949 Figure 14 ………………………………………………………………………………………..74 Canada’s Food Guide, 1961 Figure 15 …………………………………………………………………………………….75-76 Canada’s Food Guide, 1977 Figure 16 …………………………………………………………………………………….79-80 Canada’s Food Guide, 1982 Figure 17 …………………………………………………………………………………….81-82 Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating, 1992 Figure 18 ………………………………………………………………………………………121 The benefits of eating well and being active vii Figure 19 ………………………………………………………………………………………122 Overall health and vitality Figure 20 ………………………………………………………………………………………143 My Food Guide Figure 21 ………………………………………………………………………………………144 My Food Guide vegetables and fruit Figure 22 ………………………………………………………………………………………147 My Food Guide milk and alternatives Figure 23 ………………………………………………………………………………………148 My Food Guide meat alternatives, and meat, fish, shellfish and poultry Figure 24 ………………………………………………………………………………………149 My Food Guide physical activities Figure 25 ………………………………………………………………………………………152 An arguably “unhealthy” example of My Food Guide Figure 26 ………………………………………………………………………………………167 Cover page of Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Figure 27 ………………………………………………………………………………………167 Directional statements in Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide for First Nations, Inuit and Métis viii List of Tables Table 1 …………………………………………………………………………………….....… 22 Interdepartmental Working Group members Table 2 …………………………………………………………………………………………. 24 Food Guide Advisory Committee members Table 3 …………………………………………………………………………………………. 25 Food Guide revision timeline Table 4 ……………………………………………………………………………………..…. 202 Interview participants ix Acknowledgements