Who needs dairy? Experts debate the de-milking of the Canada Food Guide

As for adults, Émelie Jadot, communications coordinator at the Dairy Farmers of Canada, says most Canadians don’t get enough calcium, magnesium, zinc, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, or fibre. “It is important to highlight that milk and dairy products are a valuable source of up to 6 of these 8 nutrients, which explains why their consumption is an easy way to address these deficiencies,” says Jadot.

Ottawa-based registered dietitian Deborah Sloan agrees that calcium is important, but says families can also get it through fortified plant sources.

“I don’t think that milk is 100 per cent necessary, but some sort of fortified dairy alternative is,” says Sloan.

Goff, however, questions whether the average Canadian has the time it takes to construct a healthy vegan diet.

“If you choose not to consume dairy at all, or even to consume low levels, then you need to think about the consequences of that in terms of overall diet,” says Goff. Whether or not people actually have the time to be mindful about food? “That’s the big question.”

Even aside from it’s well-known calcium content, Goff says dairy is a lot more nutritious than naysayers give it credit for, particularly when it comes to creating a complete protein.

Plant proteins like those from grains and vegetables are usually lacking in two important amino acids: lysine and methylamine. If the body doesn’t get all of the amino acids it needs, it can’t turn food protein into usable protein, which can lead to malnourishment.

“The reason why you add milk to cereal is to make sure you get that lysine content that you need, and so that the cereal’s protein is all absorbable,” says Goff.

Milk fat is another boon to dairy, says Goff. While some people may be wary of milk’s fat content — and therefore high caloric value — Goff says it’s actually a great source of nutrition.

“For too long, we’ve deemphasized fat,” says Goff. “Milk fat is very good in terms of risk reduction of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes, obesity, and blood pressure.”

But the studies don’t all confirm Goff’s position. For example, 2016 study by Harvard public health researchers in the The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that while dairy didn’t worsen the risk of heart disease or stroke, it also didn’t lessen it. In fact, replacing dairy fat with vegetable fat or polyunsaturated fat – the kind present in nuts, seeds, and fish – reduced heart disease risk by 10 to 24 per cent. A similar 2015 review by Health Canada found that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats could help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes; dairy products can be high in saturated fats.

Goff himself has been called the world’s leading expert in ice cream, and he grew up working in the ice cream factory his father managed. While Goff himself has turned down jobs in the dairy industry, he acknowledges that his institution, Guelph University, has strong ties – both historical and financial – to the Canadian dairy sector.

But for many Canadians, taste and nutrients might not be the most important factors. Even for people who want to avoid dairy, plant-based substitutes like nut cheeses and soy yogurts are simply too pricey to adopt as dairy substitutes.

“Coming from a parent who has had to go a soy-based route for my son, because he had an issue with casein as a baby, it is quite a bit more expensive,” says Sloan. For low-income Canadians faced with a food guide that emphasizes plant-based dairy alternatives, which often cost more or are only available at high-end supermarkets like Whole Foods, alienation from the Food Guide or feelings of food-shame are concerns. “There could really be an issue there,” adds Sloan.

However, Sloan says the Food Guide’s focus on dairy can often worry parents of lactose or casein intolerant kids. “The education isn’t there,” around plant-based alternatives, says Sloan. “If there is an intolerance, [your kids] can be perfectly healthy without it.”

Despite dairy’s benefits and cheaper price point, Sloan still thinks Health Canada’s decision to de-emphasize dairy is a good choice — and a far more inclusive one than keeping dairy as its own food group.

While some people choose not to eat dairy for environmental or ethical reasons, a large number of Canadians are lactose intolerant. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, around 65 per cent of people are lactose intolerant to some degree, with lactose malabsorption being particularly common in people with West African, Jewish, Greek, Italian, and Arab ancestry. Lactose intolerance affects up to 90 per cent of people of East Asian descent — an ethnic group that StatsCan says makes up roughly 11 per cent of Canadians. The current food guide’s focus on dairy isn’t just impractical for vegans; it could actually be racially insensitive.

“Looking at milk as its own category does somewhat alienate those people who are doing a plant-based diet,” says Sloan. “Ultimately I think this way will be less judgmental.”

As of 2018, the science doesn’t seem to sway either way. What we know for certain: humans need calcium, vitamin D, protein, and fat, and dairy is an easy way to get those things. But it’s far from the only way. If veganism continues to rise in popularity and fortified dairy substitutes such as soy milk become more affordable and more widely available, de-emphasizing dairy may become a more accessible choice for working class Canadians. And the decision to consume dairy is a highly personal one, fraught with not only health worries and individual lifestyle concerns, but emotional and ethical undertones.

Animal cruelty and environmental pollution in the agricultural business are also big issues, says Sloan. “How are the cows being treated? That’s why a lot of people are moving away from dairy.”

And then there’s the taste factor: cheese can be a hard thing to forgo.

For cheese lovers who think it’s impossible to give up dairy, Cruickshank says cheese substitutes have come a long way in terms of replicating the taste and texture.

“Faux cheese is really evolving right now, and it’s really exciting. In house here we make cashew cheese. It’s like a spread with a cashew base. Nuts are such a great substitute when making a faux cheese. It has the oil and the fats in it and nutritional yeast, which also contains B-12, which is excellent for vegans and vegetarians, and you get a really good flavour coming out of that” Cruickshank says.

Cruickshank says at Pure Kitchen, she loves to prove skeptics of veganism wrong.

“You know, they think they’re going to be hungry after or it’s not going to have flavour or all they’re going to eat is salad, and we’re definitely demonstrating that there’s a lot more to plant-based food than what maybe people’s ideas were,” Cruickshank says.

With the continued success of her restaurant, and Health Canada’s more plant-centric Food Guide on the horizon, Cruickshank is confident that views on nutrition and healthy eating are turning away from dairy.

“I think that as more restaurants open up and more food blogs support and promote plant-based foods, you’re going to see a lot more of plant forward and plant centric views out there,” says Cruickshank, “and meat and dairy just aren’t really the front runners anymore.”