GuelphToday received the following letter to the editor from Robert Bilyea:
American trade policies are presenting Canadians with a patriotic imperative to buy Canadian made food products.
This is intended as just a little nudge to go a bit further and begin to liberate yourself from SAD - the Standard American Diet.
This is a huge opportunity to improve your economy, your health, and your environment.
SAD is generally characterized by food that is more highly processed and contains refined carbohydrates, added salt and sugars, refined fats, and processed meats and is typically low in a healthy variety of minimally processed vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains and fatty fish.
Many of these healthier foods can be purchased directly from Canadian farmers or through smaller, local processors, dairies, mills or distributors of locally grown food.
Moving to a diet focused on minimally processed foods from Canadian farmers will increase your chances of living healthy life longer by avoiding chronic disease outcomes like obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and strokes, fatty liver, kidney disease, and maybe even dementia and certain cancers.
Healthier Canadians means huge savings in healthcare costs and the ability to reinvest that taxpayer money into higher quality medical services with better outcomes for the treatment of non-chronic conditions.
Buying such food puts more money into your local economy, creating more jobs in your community and increasing the local capacity to process farm products into foods for local distribution. This ultimately strengthens the whole food system, improving food security and resilience to international disruptions due to man made policies or natural disasters.
You’re not just buying food, you are investing in the people who can feed you should the SAD food system fail.
Directing more of your food budget toward your local Canadian farmers and food processors puts more emphasis on sustainable agricultural practices. It reduces your reliance on giant food corporations whose primary concern is maximizing profits with little regard for your health, your livelihood or the future ability of the land to produce food.
And what’s better than a healthier you, a stronger economy, and a more sustainable and secure food system? The eating experience! you can reclaim the control of your taste buds from the spell corporate America has cast on them with hyper-palatable, ultra-processed foods scientifically designed for over consumption and even addiction.
You will taste the real flavour of real food. You will taste nutrition itself.
Support a well functioning brain that makes rational decisions - buy real food made by real people for real people.
Support Canadian farmers and local food processors. Leave SAD for the Americans.
Robert Bilyea
Mount Forest, Ontario
